^^.^^^ 



THE FUGITIVE 



By Rahindranath Tagore 



Nationalism 

Personality 

The Wreck 

Stray Birds 

Reminiscences 

The Gardener 

Songs op Kabir 

Thought Relics 

Fruit Gathering 

The Post Office 

Stories from Tagore 

The Cycle of Spring 

GiTANJALi. New Edition 

Mashi and Other Stories 

Lover's Gift and Crossing 

The Home and the World 

Sacrifice and Other Plays 

Ckitra. a Play in One Act 

Gitanjali and Fruit Gathering 

The King of the Dark Chamber 

The Crescent Moon: Child-Poems 

Sadhana: The Realisation of Life 

The Hungry Stones and Other Stories 



THE FUGITIVE 



BY 

Sc RABINDRANATH TAGORE 

If 



Il3eto gorb 

THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
1921 

All rights reserved 



PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 






V>- 



Copyright, 1921, 
By the MACMILLAN COMPANY. 



Set up and printed. Published October, 1921. 



OCT 12 1921 



Press of 

J. J. Little & Ives Company 

New York, U. S. A. 



0CI.A627233 



> 






TO 
W. W. PEARSON 



CONTENTS 



The Fugitive — I. . 








PAGB 

1 


Kacha and Devayani 








23 


Translations 








43 


The Fugitive — II. 








. 49 


Ama and Vinayaka 








. 75 


The Mother's Prayer 








. 93 


Translations 








. Ill 


The Fugitive — III. 








. 119 


SOMAKA AND RiTVIK 








. 151 


Karna and Kunti . 








. 171 


Translations 








. 195 



Darkly you sweep on, Eternal Fugi- 
tive, round whose bodiless rush stag- 
nant space frets into eddying bubbles 
of light. 

Is your heart lost to the Lover calling 
you across his immeasurable loneliness? 

Is the aching urgency of your haste 
the sole reason why your tangled tresses 
break into stormy riot and pearls of 
fire roll along your path as from a 
broken necklace? 

Your fleeting steps kiss the dust of 

this world into sweetness, sweeping 

aside all waste; the storm centred with 
3 



4 THE FUGITIVE 

your dancing limbs shakes the sacred 
shower of death over life and freshens 
her growth. 

Should you in sudden weariness stop 
for a moment, the world would rumble 
into a heap, an encumbrance, barring its 
own progress, and even the least speck 
of dust would pierce the sky throughout 
its infinity with an unbearable pressure. 

My thoughts are quickened by this 
rhythm of unseen feet round which the 
anklets of light are shaken. 

They echo in the pulse of my heart, 
and through my blood surges the psalm 
of the ancient sea. 

I hear the thundering flood tumbling 
my life from world to world and form 
to form, scattering my being in an end- 
less spray of gifts, in sorrowings and 
songs. 

The tide runs high, the wind blows. 



THE FUGITIVE 5 

the boat dances like thine own desire, 
my heart! 

Leave the hoard on the shore and 
sail over the unfathomed dark towards 
limitless light, 

2 

We came hither together, friend, 
and now at the cross-roads I stop to 
bid you farewell. 

Your path is wide and straight before 
you, but my call comes up by ways 
from the unknown. 

I shall follow wind and cloud ; I shall 
follow the stars to where day breaks 
behind the hills; I shall follow lovers 
who, as they walk, twine their days into 
a wreath on a single thread of song, "I 
love." 



It was growing dark when I asked 
her, "What strange land have I come 
to?" 



6 THE FUGITIVE 

She only lowered her eyes, and the 
water gurgled in the throat of her jar, 
as she walked away. 

The trees hang vaguely over the 
bank, and the land appears as though it 
already belonged to the past. 

The water is dumb, the bamboos are 
darkly still, a wristlet tinkles against 
the water- jar from down the lane. 

Row no more, but fasten the boat to 
this tree, — for I love the look of this 
land. 

The evening star goes down behind 
the temple dome, and the pallor of the 
marble landing haunts the dark water. 

Belated wayfarers sigh; for Ught 
from hidden windows is splintered into 
the darkness by intervening wayside 
trees and bushes. Still that wristlet 
tinkles against the water- jar, and re- 
treating steps rustle from down the lane 
littered with leaves. 



THE FUGITIVE 7 

The night deepens, the palace towers 
loom spectre-like, and the town hums 
wearily. 

Row no more, but fasten the boat to 
a tree. 

Let me seek rest in this strange land, 
dimly lying imder the stars, where dark- 
ness tingles with the tinkle of a wristlet 
knocking against a water- jar. 

4 

O that I were stored with a secret, 
hke unshed rain in summer clouds — a 
secret, folded up in silence, that I could 
wander away with. 

that I had some one to whisper to, 
where slow waters lap under trees that 
doze in the sun. 

The hush this evening seems to expect 
a footfall, and you ask me for the cause 
of my tears. 

1 cannot give a reason why I weep, 
for that is a secret still withheld from me. 



8 THE FUGITIVE 



For once be careless, timid traveller, 
and utterly lose your way; wide-awake 
though you are, be like broad daylight 
enticed by and netted in mist. 

Do not shun the garden of Lost 
Hearts waiting at the end of the wrong 
road, where the grass is strewn with 
wrecked red flowers, and disconsolate 
water heaves in the troubled sea. 

Long have you watched over the 
store gathered by weary years. Let it 
be stripped, with nothing remaining but 
the desolate triumph of losing all. 

6 

Two httle bare feet flit over thef 
ground, and seem to embody that meta- 
phor, "Flowers are the footprints of 
summer." 

They lightly impress on the dust the 
chronicle of their adventure, to be erased 
by a passing breeze. 



THE FUGITIVE 9 

Come, stray into my heart, you ten- 
der little feet, and leave the everlasting 
print of songs on my dreamland path. 



I am like the night to you, little 
flower. 

I can only give you peace and a 
wakeful silence hidden in the dark. 

When in the morning you open your 
eyes, I shall leave you to a world 
a-hum with bees, and songful with 
birds. 

My last gift to you will be a tear 
dropped into the depth of your youth; 
it will make your smile all the sweeter, 
and bemist your outlook on the pitiless 
mirth of day. 

8 

Do not stand before my window with 
those hungry eyes and beg for my se- 



10 THE FUGITIVE 

cret. It is but a tiny stone of glistening 
pain streaked with blood-red by passion. 

What gifts have you brought in both 
hands to fling before me in the dust? 

I fear, if I accept, to create a debt 
that can never be paid even by the loss 
of all I have. 

Do not stand before my window with 
your youth and flowers to shame my 
destitute life. 

9 

If I were living in the royal town of 
Ujjain, when Kalidas was the king's 
poet, I should know some Malwa girl 
and fill my thoughts with the music of 
her name. She would glance at me 
through the slanting shadow of her 
eyelids, and, allow her veil to catch in 
the jasmine as an excuse for lingering 
near me. 

This very thing happened in some 



THE FUGITIVE 11 

past whose track is lost under time's 
dead leaves. 

The scholars fight to-day about dates 
that play hide-and-seek. 

I do not break my heart dreaming 
over flown and vanished ages: but alas 
and alas again, that those Malwa girls 
have followed them! 

To what heaven, I wonder, have they 
carried in their flower-baskets those 
days that tingled to the lyrics of the 
king's poet? 

This morning, separation from those 
whom I was born too late to meet 
weighs on and saddens my heart. 

Yet April carries the same flowers 
with which they decked their hair, and 
the same south breeze fluttered their 
veils as whispers over modern roses. 

And, to tell the truth, joys are not 
lacking to this spring, though Kalidas 
sing no more; and I know, if he can 



12 THE FUGITIVE 

watch me from the Poets' Paradise, he 
has reasons to be envious. 



10 

Be not concerned about her heart, 
my heart : leave it in the dark. 

What if her beauty be of the figure 
and her smile merely of the face? Let 
me take without question the simple 
meaning of her glances and be happy. 

I care not if it be a web of delusion 
that her arms wind about me, for the 
web itself is rich and rare, and the de- 
ceit can be smiled at and forgotten. 

Be not concerned about her heart, 
my heart: be content if the music is 
true, though the words are not to be 
believed; enjoy the grace that dances 
like a lily on the rippling, deceiving 
surface, whatever may lie beneath. 



THE FUGITIVE 13 

11 

Neither mother nor daughter are you, 
nor bride, Urvashi.^ Woman you are, 
to ravish the soul of Paradise. 

When weary-footed evening comes 
down to the folds whither the cattle 
have returned, you never trim the house 
lamps nor walk to the bridal bed with 
a tremulous heart and a wavering smile 
on your lips, glad that the dark hours 
are so secret. 

Like the dawn you are without veil, 
Urvashi, and without shame. 

Who can imagine that aching over- 
flow of splendour which created you I 

You rose from the churned ocean on 
the first day of the first spring, with the 
cup of life in your right hand and poison 
in your left. The monster sea, lulled 
like an enchanted snake, laid down its 
thousand hoods at your feet. 

1 The dancing girl of Paradise who rose from the sea. 



14 THE FUGITIVE 

Your unblemished radiance rose from 
the foam, white and naked as a jasmine. 

Were you ever small, timid or in bud, 
Urvashi, O Youth everlasting? 

Did you sleep, cradled in the deep 
blue night where the strange light of 
gems plays over coral, shells and mov- 
ing creatures of dreamlike form, till day 
revealed your awful fulness of bloom? 

Adored are you of all men in all ages, 
Urvashi, O endless wonder! 

The world throbs with youthful pain 
at the glance of your eyes, the ascetic 
lays the fruit of his austerities at your 
feet, the songs of poets hum and swarm 
round the perfume of your presence. 
Your feet, as in careless joy they flit on, 
wound even the heart of the hollow wind 
with the tinkle of golden bells. 

When you dance before the gods, 
flinging orbits of novel rhythm into 



THE FUGITIVE 15 

space, Urvashi, the earth shivers, leaf 
and grass, and autumn fields heave and 
sway; the sea surges into a frenzy of 
rhyming waves ; the stars drop into the 
sky — beads from the chain that leaps 
till it breaks on your breast; and the 
blood dances in men's hearts with sud- 
den turmoil. 

You are the first break on the crest 
of heaven's slumber, Urvashi, you thrill 
the air with unrest. The world bathes 
your limbs in her tears; with colour of 
her heart's blood are your feet red; 
lightly you poise on the wave-tossed 
lotus of desire, Urvashi; you play for- 
ever in that limitless mind wherein 
labours God's tumultuous dream. 

12 

You, like a rivulet swift and sinuous, 
laugh and dance, and your steps sing as 
you trip along. 



16 THE FUGITIVE 

I, like a bank rugged and steep, stand 
speechless and stock-still and darkly 
gaze at you. 

I, like a big, foolish storm, of a sud- 
den come rushing on and try to rend my 
being and scatter it parcelled in a whirl 
of passion. 

You, like the lightning's flash slender 
and keen, pierce the heart of the turbu- 
lent darkness, to disappear in a vivid 
streak of laughter. 

13 

You desired my love and yet you did 
not love me. 

Therefore my life clings to you like 
a chain of which clank and grip grow 
harsher the more you struggle to be 
free. 

My despair has become your deadly 
companion, clutching at the faintest of 



THE FUGITIVE 17 

your favours, trying to drag you away 
into the cavern of tears. 

You have shattered my freedom, and 
with its wreck built your own prison. 

14 

I am glad you will not wait for me 
with that lingering pity in your look. 

It is only the spell of the night and 
my farewell words, startled at their own 
tune of despair, which bring these tears 
to my eyes. But day will dawn, my 
eyes will dry and my heart; and there 
will be no time for weeping. 

Who says it is hard to forget? 

The mercy of death works at life's 
core, bringing it respite from its own 
foolish persistence. 

The stormy sea is lulled at last in its 
rocking cradle; the forest fire falls to 
sleep on its bed of ashes. 

You and I shaU part, and the cleav- 



18 THE FUGITIVE 

age will be hidden under living grass 
and flowers that laugh in the sun. 

15 

Of all days you have chosen this one 
to visit my garden. 

But the storm passed over my roses 
last night and the grass is strewn with 
torn leaves. 

I do not know what has brought you, 
now that the hedges are laid low and 
rills run in the walks; the prodigal 
wealth of spring is scattered and the 
scent and song of yesterday are wrecked. 

Yet stay a while; let me find some 
remnant flowers, though I doubt if 
your skirt can be filled. 

The time will be short, for the clouds 
thicken and here comes the rain again I 

16 

I forgot myself for a moment, and I 
came. 



THE FUGITIVE 19 

But raise your eyes, and let me know 
if there still linger some shadow of other 
days, like a pale cloud on the horizon 
that has been robbed of its rain. 

For a moment bear with me if I for- 
get myself. 



The roses are still in bud; they do 
not yet know how we neglect to gather 
flowers this summer. 

The morning star has the same 
palpitating hush; the early light is en- 
meshed in the branches that overbrow 
vour window, as in those other days. 

That times are changed I forget for 
a little, and have come. 



I forget if you ever shamed me by 
looking away when I bared my heart. 

I only remember the words that 
stranded on the tremor of your lips; 
I remember in your dark eyes sweeping 



20 THE FUGITIVE 

shadows of passion, like the wings of a 
home-seeking bird in the dusk. 

I forget that you do not remember, 
and I come. 

17 

The rain fell fast. The river rushed 
and hissed. It licked up and swallowed 
the island, while I waited alone on the 
lessening bank with my sheaves of corn 
in a heap. 

From the shadows of the opposite 
shore the boat crosses with a woman at 
the hehn. 

I cry to her, "Come to my island 
coiled round with hungry water, and 
take away my year's harvest.*' 

She comes, and takes all that I have 
to the last grain; I ask her to take me. 

But she says, "No" — the boat is 
laden with my gift and no room is left 
for me. 



THE FUGITIVE 21 

18 

The evening beckons, and I would 
fain follow the travellers who sailed in 
the last ferry of the ebb-tide to cross 
the dark. 

Some were for home, some for the 
farther shore, yet all have ventured to 
sail. 

But I sit alone at the landing, having 
left my home and missed the boat: 
summer is gone and my winter harvest 
is lost. 

I wait for that love which gathers 
failures to sow them in tears on the 
dark, that they may bear fruit when 
day rises anew. 

19 

On this side of the water there is no 
landing; the girls do not come here to 
fetch water; the land along its edge is 
shaggy with stunted shrubs; a noisy 



22 THE FUGITIVE 

flock of saliks dig their nests in the steep 
bank under whose frown the fisher-boats 
find no shelter. 

You sit there on the unfrequented 
grass, and the morning wears on. Tell 
me what you do on this bank so dry 
that it is agape with cracks? 

She looks in my face and says, "Noth- 
ing, nothing whatsoever." 

On this side of the river the bank is 
deserted, and no cattle come to water. 
Only some stray goats from the village 
browse the scanty grass all day, and the 
solitary water-hawk watches from an 
uprooted peepal aslant over the mud. 

You sit there alone in the miserly 
shade of a shimool, and the morning 
wears on. 

Tell me, for whom do you wait ? 

She looks in my face and says, "No 
one, no one at alll" 



20 
KACHA AND DEVAYANI 



23 



KACHA AND DEVAYANI 

Young Kacha came from Paradise to 
learn the secret of immortality from a 
Sage who taught the Titans^ and whose 
daughter Devayani fell in love with him, 

Kacha 

The time has come for me to take 
leave, Devayani ; I have long sat at your 
father's feet, but to-day he completed 
his teaching. Graciously allow me to 
go back to the land of the Gods whence 
I came. 

Devayani 
You have, as you desired, won that 
rare knowledge coveted by the Gods ; — 

25 



26 THE FUGITIVE 

but think, do you aspire after nothing 
further? 

Kacha 
Nothing. 

Deyayani 

Nothing at all ! Dive into the bottom 
of your heart; does no timid wish lurk 
there, fearful lest it be blighted? 

Kacha 

For me the sun of fulfilment has risen, 
and the stars have faded in its light. 
I have mastered the knowledge which 
gives life. 

Deyayani 

Then you must be the one happy 
being in creation. Alas! now for the 
first time I feel what torture these days 
spent in an alien land have been to you, 
though we offered you our best. 



THE FUGITIVE 27 

Kacha 

Xot so much bitterness! Smile, and 
give me leave to go. 

Devayani 

Smile! But, my friend, this is not 
your native Paradise. Smiles are not 
so cheap in this world, where thirst, 
like a worm in the flower, gnaws at the 
heart's core ; where baffled desire hovers 
round the desired, and memory never 
ceases to sigh foolishly after vanished 

joy. 

Kacha 

Devayani, tell me how I have of- 
fended? 

Devayani 

Is it so easy for you to leave this 
forest, which through long years has 
lavished on you shade and song? Do 
you not feel how the wind wails 



28 THE FUGITIVE 

through these glimmering shadows, 
and dry leaves whirl in the air, like 
ghosts of lost hope; — while you alone, 
who part from us, have a smile on your 
lips? 

Kacha 

This forest has been a second mother 
to me, for here I have been born again. 
My love for it shall never dwindle. 

Devayani 

When you had driven the cattle to 
graze on the lawn, yonder banyan tree 
spread a hospitable shade for your 
tired limbs against the mid-day heat. 

Kacha 

I bow to thee. Lord of the Forest! 
Remember me, when under thy shade 
other students chant their lessons to an 
accompaniment of bees humming and 
leaves rustling. 



THE FUGITIVE 29 

Deyayani 

And do not forget our Venumati, 
whose swift water is one stream of 
singing love. 

Kacha 

I shall ever remember her, the dear 
companion of my exile, who, like a busy- 
village girl, smiles on her errand of 
ceaseless service and croons a simple 
song. 

Devayani 

But, friend, let me also remind you 
that you had another companion whose 
thoughts were vainly busy to make you 
forget an exile's cares. 

Kacha 

The memory of her has become a 
part of my life. 



30 THE FUGITIVE 

Devayani 

I recall the day when, little more 
than a boy, you first arrived. You 
stood there, near the hedge of the 
garden, a smile in your eyes. 



Kacha 

And I saw you gathering flowers — 
clad in white, like the dawn bathed in 
radiance. And I said, "Make me 
proud by allowing me to help youl" 



Devayani 

I asked in surprise who you were, 
and you meekly answered that you 
were the son of Vrihaspati, a divine 
sage at the court of the God Indra, and 
desired to learn from my father that 
secret spell which can revive the dead. 



THE FUGITIVE 31 

Kacha 

I feared lest the Master, the teacher 
of the Titans, those rivals of the Gods, 
should refuse to accept me for a dis- 
ciple. 

Deyayani 

But he could not refuse me when I 
pleaded your cause, so greatly he loves 
his daughter. 

Kacha 

Thrice had the jealous Titans slain 
me, and thrice you prevailed on your 
father to bring me back to life; there- 
fore my gratitude can never die. 

Devayani 

Gratitude! Forget all — I shall not 
grieve. Do you only remember bene- 
fits? Let them perish! If after the 
day's lessons, in the evening solitude, 
some strange tremor of joy shook your 



32 THE FUGITIVE 

heart, remember that — but not grati- 
tude. If, as some one passed, a snatch 
of song got tangled among your texts 
or the swing of a robe fluttered your 
studies with delight, remember that 
when at leisure in your Paradise. 
What, benefits only! — and neither 
beauty nor love nor . . . ? 

Kacha 
Some things are beyond the power 
of words. 

Devayani 

Yes, yes, I know. My love has 
sounded your heart's deepest, and 
makes me bold to speak in defiance of 
your reserve. Never leave me! remain 
here! fame gives no happiness. Friend, 
you cannot now escape, for your secret 
is mine! 

Kacha 
No, no, Devayani, 



THE FUGITIVE 33 

Devayani 

How "No"? Do not lie to me! 
Love's insight is divine. Day after 
day, in raising your head, in a glance, 
in the motion of your hands, your love 
spoke as the sea speaks thi^ough jits 
waves. On a sudden my voice would 
send your heart quivering through 
your limbs — have I never witnessed it? 
I know you, and therefore you are my 
captive for ever. The very king of 
your Gods shall not sever this bond. 

Kacha 

Was it for this, Devayani, that I 
toiled, away from home and kindred, 
all these years? 

Devayani 
Why not? Is only knowledge pre- 
cious? Is love cheap? Lay hold on 
this moment. Have the courage to 



34 THE FUGITIVE 

own that a woman's heart is worth all 
as much penance as men undergo for 
the sake of power, knowledge, or repu- 
tation. 

Kacha 

I gave my solemn promise to the 
Gods that I would bring them this lore 
of deathless life. 

Deyayani 

But is it true you had eyes for noth- 
ing save your books? That you never 
broke off your studies to pay me hom- 
age with flowers, never lay in wait for 
a chance, of an evening, to help me 
water my flower-beds? What made 
you sit by me on the grass and sing 
songs you brought hither from the as- 
sembly of the stars, while darkness 
stooped over the river bank as love 
droops over its own sad silence? Were 
these parts of a cruel conspiracy 
plotted in your Paradise ? Was all for 



THE FUGITIVE 35 

the sake of access to my father's heart? 
— and after success, were you, depart- 
ing, to throw some cheap gratitude, 
like small coins, to the deluded door- 
keeper? 

Kacha 

What profit were there, proud 
woman, in knowing the truth? If I did 
wrong to serve you with a passionate 
devotion cherished in secret, I have had 
ample punishment. This is no time to 
question whether my love be true or 
not ; my life's work awaits me. Though 
my heart must henceforth enclose a red 
flame vainly striving to devour empti- 
ness, still I must go back to that Para- 
dise which will nevermore be Paradise 
to me. I owe the Gods a new divinity, 
hard won by my studies, before I 
may think of happiness. Forgive me, 
Devayani, and know that my suffering 
is doubled by the pain I unwillingly 
inflict on you. 



36 THE FUGITIVE 

Devayani 

Forgiveness! You have angered my 
heart till it is hard and burning like a 
thunderbolt! You can go back to your 
work and your glory, but what is left 
for me? Memory is a bed of thorns, 
and secret shame will gnaw at the roots 
of my life. You came like a wayfarer, 
sat through the sunny hours in the 
shade of my garden, and to while time 
away you plucked all its flowers and 
wove them into a chain. And now, 
parting, you snap the thread and let 
the flowers drop on the dust! Ac- 
cursed be that great knowledge you 
have earned! — a burden that, though 
others share equally with you, will 
never be lightened. For lack of love 
may it ever remain as foreign to your 
life as the cold stars are to the un- 
espoused darkness of virgin Night! 



21 



I 

"Why these preparations without 
end?" — I said to Mind — "Is some one 
to come?" 

Mind repHed, "I am enormously 
busy gathering things and building 
towers. I have no time to answer such 
questions." 

Meekly I went back to my work. 

When things were grown to a pile, 
when seven wings of his palace were 
complete, I said to Mind, "Is it not 
enough?" 

Mind began to say, "Not enough to 
contain " and then stopped. 

"Contain what?" I asked. 

Mind affected not to hear. 

37 



38 THE FUGITIVE 

I suspected that Mind did not know, 
and with ceaseless work smothered the 
question. 

His one refrain was, "I must have 
more." 

"Why must you?" 

"Because it is great." 

"What is great?" 

Mind remained silent. I pressed for 
an answer. 

In contempt and anger, Mind said, 
"Why ask about things that are not? 
Take notice of those that are hugely 
before you, — the struggle and the 
fight, the army and armaments, the 
bricks and mortar, and labourers with- 
out number." 

I thought "Possibly Mind is wise." 

II 

Days passed. More wings were 
added to his palace — more lands to his 
domain. 



THE FUGITIVE 39 

The season of rains came to an end. 
The dark clouds became white and 
thin, and in the rain-washed sky the 
sunny hours hovered like butterflies 
over an unseen flower. I was bewil- 
dered and asked everybody I met, 
"What is that music in the breeze?" 

A tramp walked the road whose 
dress was wild as his manner; he said, 
"Hark to the music of the Coming!" 

I cannot tell why I was convinced, 
but the words broke from me, "We have 
not much longer to wait." 

"It is close at hand," said the mad 
man. 

I went to the office and boldly said 
to Mind, "Stop all work!" 

Mind asked, "Have you any news?" 

"Yes," I answered, "News of the 
Coming." But I could not explain. 

Mind shook his head and said, "There 
are neither banners nor pageantry!" 



40 THE FUGITIVE 

in 

The night waned, the stars paled in 
the sky. Suddenly the touchstone of the 
morning light tinged everything with 
gold. A cry spread from mouth to 
mouth — 

"Here is the herald!" 

I bowed my head and asked, "Is he 
coming?" 

The answer seemed to burst from all 
sides, "Yes." 

Mind grew troubled and said, "The 
dome of my building is not yet finished, 
nothing is in order." 

A voice came from the sky, "Pull 
down your building!" 

"But why?" asked Mind. 

"Because to-day is the day of the 
Coming, and your building is in the 
way." 



THE FUGITIVE 41 

The lofty building lies in the dust and 
all is scattered and broken. 

Mind looked about. But what was 
there to see? 

Only the morning star and the lily 
washed in dew. 

And what else? A child running 
laughing from its mother's arms into the 
open light. 

"Was it only for this that they said 
it was the day of the Coming?" 

"Yes, this was why they said there 
was music in the air and light in the 
sky." 

"And did they claim all the earth only 
for this?" 

"Yes," came the answer. "Mind, you 
build walls to imprison yourself. Your 
servants toil to enslave themselves ; but 
the whole earth and infinite space are 
for the child, for the New Life." 



42 THE FUGITIVE 

"What does that child bring you?" 
"Hope for all the world and its joy." 
Mind asked me, "Poet, do you under- 
stand?" 

"I lay my work aside," I said, "for 
I must have time to understand." 



22 
TRANSLATIONS 



43 



VAISHNAVA SONGS 



Oh Sakhi/ my sorrow knows no 
bounds. 

August comes laden with rain clouds 
and my house is desolate. 

The stormy sky growls, the earth is 
flooded with rain, my love is far away, 
and my heart is torn with anguish. 

The peacocks dance, for the clouds 
rumble and frogs croak. 

The night brims with darkness flicked 
with lightning. 

Vidyapati ^ asks, "Maiden, how are 
you to spend your days and nights with- 
out your lord?" 

1 The woman friend of a woman. 
2 The name of the poet. 

45 



46 THE FUGITIVE 

2 

Lucky was my awakening this morn- 
ing, for I saw my beloved. 

The sky was one piece of joy, and 
my life and youth were fulfilled. 

To-day my house becomes my house 
in truth, and my body my body. 

Fortune has proved a friend, and my 
doubts are dispelled. 

Birds, sing your best; moon, shed 
your fairest light ! 

Let fly your darts, Love-God, in 
millions! 

I wait for the moment when my body 
will grow golden at his touch. 

Vidyapati says, "Immense is your 
good fortune, and blessed is your love.*' 

3 

I feel my body vanishing into the 
dust whereon my beloved walks. 

I feel one with the water of the lake 
where he bathes. 



THE FUGITIVE 47 

Oh Sakhi, my love crosses death's 
boundary when I meet him. 

My heart melts in the light and 
merges in the mirror whereby he views 
his face. 

I move with the air to kiss him when 
he waves his fan, and wherever he 
wanders I enclose him like the sky. 

Govindadas says, "You are the gold- 
setting, fair maiden, he is the emerald." 



My love, I will keep you hidden in 
my eyes ; I will thread your image like 
a gem on my joy and hang it on my 
bosom. 

You have been in my heart ever since 
I was a child, throughout my youth, 
throughout my life, even through all my 
dreams. 

You dwell in my being when I sleep 
and when I wake. 



48 THE FUGITIVE 

Know that I am a woman, and bear 
with me when you find me wanting. 

For I have thought and thought and 
know for certain that all that is left for 
me in this world is your love, and if I 
lose you for a moment I die. 

Chandidas says, "Be tender to her 
who is yours in life and death." 



"Fruit to sell, Fruit to sell," cried the 
woman at the door. 

The Child came out of the house. 

"Give me some fruit," said he, put- 
ting a handful of rice in her basket. 

The fruit-seller gazed at his face and 
her eyes swam with tears. 

"Who is the fortunate mother," she 
cried, "that has clasped you in her arms 
and fed you at her breast, and whom 
your dear voice called 'Mother'?" 

"Offer your fruit to him," says the 
poet, "and with it your life." 



il 



49 



] 

Endlessly varied art thou in the ex- 
uberant world, Lady of Manifold 
Magnificence. Thy path is strewn with 
lights, thy touch thrills into flowers; 
that trailing skirt of thine sweeps the 
whirl of a dance among the stars, and 
thy many-toned music is echoed from 
innumerable worlds through signs and 
colours. 

Single and alone in the unfathomed 
stillness of the soul, art thou, Lady of 
Silence and Solitude, a vision thrilled 
with light, a lonely lotus blossoming on 
the stem of love. 



Behind the rusty iron gratings of the 
opposite window sits a girl, dark and 

51 



52 THE FUGITIVE 

plain of face, like a boat stranded on a 
sand-bank when the river is shallow in 
the summer. 

I come back to my room after my 
day's work, and my tired eyes are lured 
to her. 

She seems to me like a lake with its 
dark lonely waters edged by moonlight. 

She has only her window for free- 
dom : there the morning light meets her 
musings, and through it her dark eyes 
like lost stars travel back to their sky. 



I remember the day. 

The heavy shower of rain is slacken- 
ing into fitful pauses, renewed gusts of 
wind startle it from a first lull. 

I take up my instrument. Idly I 
touch the strings, till, without my know- 
ing, the music borrows the mad cadence 
of that storm. 



THE FUGITIVE 53 

I see her figure as she steals from her 
work, stops at my door, and retreats 
with hesitating steps. She comes again, 
stands outside leaning against the wall, 
then slowly enters the room and sits 
down. With head bent, she plies her 
needle in silence; but soon stops her 
work, and looks out of the window 
through the rain at the blurred line of 
trees. 

Only this — one hour of a rainy noon 
filled with shadows and song and silence. 



While stepping into the carriage she 
turned her head and threw me a swift 
glance of farewell. 

This was her last gift to me. But 
where can I keep it safe from the 
trampling hours? 

Must evening sweep this gleam of 
anguish away, as it will the last flicker 
of fire from the sunset ? 



54 THE FUGITIVE 

Ought it to be washed off by the rain, 
as treasured pollens are from heart- 
broken flowers? 

Leave kingly glory and the wealth 
of the rich to death. But may not tears 
keep ever fresh the memory of a glance 
flung through a passionate moment? 

"Give it to me to keep," said my 
song; "I never touch kings' glory or the 
wealth of the rich, but these small things 
are mine for ever." 



You give yourself to me, like a flower 
that blossoms at night, whose presence 
is known by the dew that drips from it, 
by the odour shed through the darkness, 
as the first steps of Spring are by the 
buds that thicken the twigs. 

You break upon my thought like 
waves at the high tide, and my heart is 
drowned under surging songs. 

My heart knew of your coming, as 



THE FUGITIVE 55 

the night feels the approach of dawn. 
The clouds are aflame and my sky fills 
with a great revealing flood. 

6 

I was to go away; still she did not 
speak. But I felt, from a slight quiver, 
her yearning arms would say: "Ah no, 
not yet." 

I have often heard her pleading hands 
vocal in a touch, though they knew not 
what they said. 

I have known those arms to stammer 
when, had they not, they would have 
become youth's garland round my neck. 

Their little gestures return to remem- 
brance in the covert of still hours, like 
truants they playfully reveal things she 
had kept secret from me. 

7 

My songs are like bees; they follow 
through the air some fragrant trace — 
some memory — of you, to hum around 



56 THE FUGITIVE 

your shyness, eager for its hidden store. 
When the freshness of dawn droops 
in the sun, when in the noon the air 
hangs low with heaviness and the forest 
is silent, my songs return home, their 
languid wings dusted with gold. 

8 

I believe you had visited me in a 
vision before we ever met, like some 
foretaste of April before the spring 
broke into flower. 

That vision must have come when all 
was bathed in the odour of sal blossom ; 
when the twilight twinkle of the river 
fringed its yellow sands, and the vague 
sounds of a summer afternoon were 
blended ; yes, and had it not laughed and 
evaded me in many a nameless gleam 
at other moments ? 

9 

I think I shall stop startled if ever 
we meet after our next birth, walking 
in the light of a far-away world. 



THE FUGITIVE 57 

I shall know those dark eyes then as 
morning stars, and yet feel that they 
have belonged to some unremembered 
evening sky of a former life. 

I shall know that the magic of your 
face is not all its own, but has stolen the 
passionate light that was in my eyes at 
some immemorial meeting, and then 
gathered from my love a mystery that 
has now forgotten its origin. 

10 

Lay down your lute, my love, leave 
your arms free to embrace me. 

Let your touch bring my overflowing 
heart to my body's utmost brink. 

Do not bend your neck and turn 
away your face, but offer up a kiss to 
me, which has been like some perfume 
long closed in a bud. 

Do not smother this moment under 
vain words, but let our hearts quake in 
a rush of silence sweeping all thoughts 
to the shoreless delight. 



58 THE FUGITIVE 

11 

You have made me great with your 
love, though I am but one among the 
many, drifting in the common tide, 
rocking in the fluctuant favour of the 
world. 

You have given me a seat where 
poets of all time bring their tribute, and 
lovers with deathless names greet one 
another across the ages. 

Men hastily pass me in the market, 
— never noting how my body has grown 
precious with your caress, how I carry 
your kiss within, as the sun carries in 
its orb the fire of the divine touch and 
shines for ever. 

12 

Like a child that frets and pushes 
away its toys, my heart to-day shakes 
its head at every phrase I suggest, and 
says, "No, not this." 



THE FUGITIVE 59 

Yet words, in the agony of their 
vagueness, haunt my mind, like vagrant 
clouds hovering over hills, waiting for 
some chance wind to relieve them of 
their rain. 

But leave these vain efforts, my soul, 
for the stillness will ripen its own music 
in the dark. 

My life to-day is like a cloister dur- 
ing some penance, where the spring is 
afraid to stir or to whisper. 

This is not the time, my love, for you 
to pass the gate; at the mere thought 
of your anklet bells tinkling down the 
path, the garden echoes are ashamed. 

Know that to-morrow's songs are in 
bud to-day, and should they see you 
walk by they would strain to breaking 
their immature hearts. 

13 

Whence do you bring this disquiet, 
my love? 



60 THE FUGITIVE 

Let my heart touch yours and kiss 
the pain out of your silence. 

The night has thrown up from its 
depth this little hour, that love may 
build a new world within these shut 
doors, to be lighted by this solitary 
lamp. 

We have for music but a single reed 
which our two pairs of lips must play 
on by turns — for crown, only one gar- 
land to bind my hair after I have put 
it on your forehead. 

Tearing the veil from my breast I 
shall make our bed on the floor; and 
one kiss and one sleep of delight shall 
fill our small boundless world. 

14 

All that I had I gave to you, keep- 
ing but the barest veil of reserve. 

It is so thin that you secretly smile 
at it and I feel ashamed. 

The gust of the spring breeze sweeps 



THE FUGITIVE 61 

it away unawares, and the flutter of my 
own heart moves it as the waves move 
their foam. 

My love, do not grieve if I keep this 
flimsy mist of distance round me. 

This frail reserve of mine is no mere 
woman's coyness, but a slender stem on 
which the flower of my self-surrender 
bends towards you with reticent grace. 

15 

I have donned this new robe to-day 
because my body feels like singing. 

It is not enough that I am given to 
my love once and for ever, but out of 
that I must fashion new gifts every 
day; and shall I not seem a fresh offer- 
ing, dressed in a new robe? 

My heart, like the evening sky, has 
its endless passion for colour, and there- 
fore I change my veils, which have now 
the green of the cool young grass and 
now that of the winter rice. 



62 THE FUGITIVE 

To-day my robe is tinted with the 
rain-rimmed blue of the sky. It brings 
to my limbs the colour of the boundless, 
the colour of the oversea hills; and it 
carries in its folds the delight of summer 
clouds flying in the wind. 

16 

I thought I would write love's words 
in their own colour; but that lies deep 
in the heart, and tears are pale. 

Would you know them, friend, if the 
words were colourless? 

I thought I would sing love's words 
to their own tune, but that sounds only 
in my heart, and my eyes are silent. 

Would you know them, friend, if 
there were no tune? 

17 

In the night the song came to me; 
but you were not there. 

It found the words for which I had 
been seeking all day. Yes, in the still- 



THE FUGITIVE 63 

ness a moment after dark they throbbed 
into music, even as the stars then began 
to pulse with light; but you were not 
there. My hope was to sing it to you 
in the morning; but, try as I might, 
though the music cam'e, the words hung 
back, when you were beside me. 

18 

The night deepens and the dying 
flame flickers in the lamp. 

I forgot to notice when the evening 
— like a village girl who has filled her 
pitcher at the river a last time for that 
day — closed the door on her cabin. 

I was speaking to you, my love, with 
mind barely conscious of my voice — 
tell me, had it any meaning? Did it 
bring you any message from beyond 
life's borders? 

For now, since my voice has ceased, 
I feel the night throbbing with thoughts 
that gaze in awe at the abyss of their 
dumbness. 



64. THE FUGITIVE 

19 

When we two first met my heart rang 
out in music, "She who is eternally afar 
is beside you for ever." 

That music is silent, because I have 
grown to believe that my love is only 
near, and have forgotten that she is also 
far, far away. 

Music fills the infinite between two 
souls. This has been mufiled by the 
mist of our daily habits. 

On shy summer nights, when the 
breeze brings a vast murmur out of the 
silence, I sit up in my bed and mourn 
the great loss of her who is beside me. 
I ask myself, "When shall I have an- 
other chance to whisper to her words 
with the rhythm of eternity in them?" 

Wake up, my song, from thy languor, 
rend this screen of the familiar, and fly 
to my beloved there, in the endless sur- 
prise of our first meeting! 



THE FUGITIVE 65 

20 

Lovers come to you, my Queen, and 
proudly lay their riches at your feet: 
but my tribute is made up of unfulfilled 
hopes. 

Shadows have stolen across the heart 
of my world and the best in me has lost 
li^ht. 

While the fortunate laugh at my 
penury, I ask you to lend my failinsfs 
your tears, and so make them precious. 

I bring you a voiceless instrument. 

I strained to reach a note which was 
too high in my heart, and the string 
broke. 

While masters laugh at the snapped 
cord, I ask you to take my lute in your 
hands and fill its hollowness with your 
songs. 

21 

The father came back from the 
funeral rites. 



66 THE FUGITIVE 

His boy of seven stood at the win- 
dow, with eyes wide open and a golden 
amulet hanging from his neck, full of 
thoughts too difficult for his age. 

His father took him in his arms and 
the boy asked him, "Where is mother?" 

"In heaven," answered his father, 
pointing to the sky. 

At night the father groaned in slum- 
ber, weary with grief. 

A lamp dimly burned near the bed- 
room door, and a lizard chased moths 
on the wall. 

The boy woke up from sleep, felt with 
his hands the emptiness in the bed, and 
stole out to the open terrace. 

The boy raised his eyes to the sky and 
long gazed in silence. His bewildered 
mind sent abroad into the night the 
question, "Where is heaven?" 

No answer came: and the stars 
seemed like the burning tears of that 
ignorant darkness. 



THE FUGITIVE 67 

22 

She went away when the night was 
about to wane. 

My mind tried to console me by say- 
ing, "All is vanity." 

I felt angry and said, "That un- 
opened letter with her name on it, and 
this palm-leaf fan bordered with red 
silk by her own hands, are they not 
real?" 

The day passed, and my friend came 
and said to me, "Whatever is good is 
true, and can never perish." 

"How do you know?" I asked im- 
patiently; "was not this body good 
which is now lost to the world?" 

As a fretful child hurting its own 
mother, I tried to wreck all the shelters 
that ever I had, in and about me, and 
cried, "This world is treacherous." 

Suddenly I felt a voice saying — "Un- 
grateful!" 



68 THE FUGITIVE 

I looked out of the window, and a 
reproach seemed to come from the star- 
sprinkled night, — "You pour out into 
the void of my absence your faith in 
the truth that I came!" 

23 

The river is grey and the air dazed 
with blown sand. 

On a morning of dark disquiet, when 
the birds are mute and their nests shake 
in the gust, I sit alone and ask myself, 
"Where is she?" 

The days have flown wherein we sat 
too near each other; we laughed and 
jested, and the awe of love's majesty 
found no words at our meetings. 

I made myself small, and she trifled 
away every moment with pelting talk. 

To-day I wish in vain that she were 
by me, in the gloom of the coming 
storm, to sit in the soul's solitude. 



THE FUGITIVE 69 

24 

The name she called me by, like a 
flourishing jasmine, covered the whole 
seventeen years of our love. With its 
sound mingled the quiver of the light 
through the leaves, the scent of the grass 
in the rainy night, and the sad silence 
of the last hour of many an idle day. 

Not the work of God alone was he 
who answered to that name ; she created 
him again for herself during those 
seventeen swift years. 

Other years were to follow, but their 
vagrant days, no longer gathered with- 
in the fold of that name uttered in her 
voice, stray and are scattered. 

They ask me, "Who should fold us?" 

I find no answer and sit silent, and 
they cry to me while dispersing, "We 
seek a shepherdess!" 

Whom should they seek? 

That they do not know. And like 



70 THE FUGITIVE 

derelict evening clouds they drift in the 
trackless dark, and are lost and for- 
gotten. 

25 

I feel that your brief days of love 
have not been left behind in those 
scanty years of your life. 

I seek to know in what place, away 
from the slow-thieving dust, you keep 
them now. I find in my solitude some 
song of your evening that died, yet left 
a deathless echo ; and the sighs of your 
unsatisfied hours I find nestled in the 
warm quiet of the autumn noon. 

Your desires come from the hive of 
the past to haunt my heart, and I sit 
still to listen to their wings. 

26 
You have taken a bath in the dark 
sea. You are once again veiled in a 
bride's robe, and through death's arch 



THE FUGITIVE 71 

you come back to repeat our wedding 
in the soul. 

Neither lute nor drum is struck, no 
crowd has gathered, not a wreath is 
hung on the gate. 

Your unuttered words meet mine in 
a ritual unillumined by lamps. 

27 

I was walking along a path over- 
grown with grass, when suddenly I 
heard from some one behind, ''See if 
you know me?" 

I turned round and looked at her 
and said, "I cannot remember your 
name." 

She said, "I am that first great Sor- 
row whom you met when you were 
young." 

Her eyes looked like a morning 
whose dew is still in the air. 

I stood silent for some time till I 
said, "Have you lost all the great 
burden of your tears?" 



72 THE FUGITIVE 

She smiled and said nothing. I felt 
that her tears had had time to learn 
the language of smiles. 

"Once you said," she whispered, 
"that you would cherish your grief for 
ever." 

I blushed and said, "Yes, hut years 
have passed and I forget." 

Then I took her hand in mine and 
said, "But you have changed." 

"What was sorrow once has now be- 
come peace," she said. 

28 

Our life sails on the uncrossed sea 
whose waves chase each other in an 
eternal hide-and-seek. 

It is the restless sea of change, feed- 
ing its foaming flocks to lose them over 
and over again, beating its hands 
against the calm of the sky. 

Love, in the centre of this circling 



THE FUGITIVE 73 

war-dance of light and dark, yours is 
that green island, where the sun kisses 
the shy forest shade and silence is 
wooed by birds' singing. 



29 
AMA AND VINAYAKA 



7S 



AMA AND VINAYAKA 

Night on the battle field: Ama meets 
her father Vinayaka. 

Ama 

Father! 

Vinayaka 

Shameless wanton, you call me 
"Father"! you who did not shrink 
from a Mussulman husband! 

Ama 

Though you have treacherously killed 
my husband, yet you are my father; 
and I hold back a widow's tears, lest 
they bring God's curse on you. Since 



78 THE FUGITIVE 

we have met on this battlefield after 
years of separation, let me bow to your 
feet and take my last leave 1 

ViNAYAKA 

Where will you go, Ama? The 
tree on which you built your impious 
nest is hewn down. Where will you 
take shelter? 

Ama 

I have my son. 

ViNAYAKA 

Leave him! Cast never a fond look 
back on the result of a sin expiated 
with blood! Think where to go. 

Ama 

Death's open gates are wider than a 
father's love! 



THE FUGITIVE 79 

ViNAYAKA 

Death indeed swallows sins as the 
sea swallows the mud of rivers. But 
you are to die neither to-night nor here. 
Seek some solitary shrine of holy Shiva 
far from shamed kindred and all neigh- 
bours; bathe three times a day in 
sacred Ganges, and, while reciting 
God's name, listen to the last bell of 
evening worship, that Death may look 
tenderly upon you, as a father on his 
sleeping child whose eyes are still wet 
with tears. Let him gently carry you 
into his own great silence, as the 
Ganges carries a fallen flower on its 
stream, washing every stain away to 
render it, a fit offering, to the sea. 

Ama 

But my son 

ViNAYAKA 

Again I bid you not to speak of him. 
Lay yourself once more in a father's 



80 THE FUGITIVE 

arms, my child, like a babe fresh from 
the womb of Oblivion, your second 
mother. 

Ama 

To me the world has become a 
shadow. Your words I hear, but can- 
not take to heart. Leave me, father, 
leave me alone ! Do not try to bind me 
with your love, for its bands are red 
with my husband's blood. 

ViNAYAKA 

Alas! no flower ever returns to the 
parent branch it dropped from. How 
can you call him husband who forcibly 
snatched you from Jivaji to whom you 
had been sacredly affianced? I shall 
never forget that night! In the wed- 
ding hall we sat anxiously expecting 
the bridegroom, for the auspicious hour 
was dwindling away. Then in the 
distance appeared the glare of torches. 



THE FUGITIVE 81 

and bridal strains came floating up the 
air. We shouted for joy: women blew 
their conch-shells. A procession of 
palanquins entered the courtyard: but 
while we were asking, "Where is Ji- 
vaji?" armed men burst out of the lit- 
ters like a storm, and bore you off be- 
fore we knew what had happened. 
Shortly after, Jivaji came to tell us he 
had been waylaid and captured by a 
Mussulman noble of the Vijapur court. 
That night Jivaji and I touched the 
nuptial fire and swore bloody death to 
this villain. After waiting long, we 
have been freed from our solemn 
pledge to-night; and the spirit of 
Jivaji, who. lost his life in this battle, 
lawfully claims you for wife. 

Ama 

Father, it may be that I have dis- 
graced the rites of your house, but my 
honour is unsullied; I loved him to 



82 THE FUGITIVE 

whom I bore a son. I remember the 
night when I received two secret mes- 
sages, one from you, one from my 
mother; yours said: "I send you the 
knife; kill him!" My mother's: "I 
send you the poison; end your life!" 
Had unholy force dishonoured me, 
your double bidding had been obeyed. 
But my body was yielded only after 
love had given me — love all the greater, 
all the purer, in that it overcame the 
hereditary recoil of our blood from the 
Mussulman. 

Enter Rama, Ama's mother 

Ama 

Mother mine, I had not hoped to see 
you again. Let me take dust from 
your feet. 

Rama 

Touch me not with impure hands ! 



THE FUGITIVE 83 

Ama 
I am as pure as yourself. 

Rama 

To whom have you surrendered your 
honour? 

Ama 
To my husband. 

Rama 

Husband? A Mussulman the hus- 
band of a Brahmin woman? 

Ama 

I do not merit contempt : I am proud 
to say I never despised my husband 
though a Mussulman. If Paradise 
will reward your devotion to your hus- 
band, then the same Paradise waits for 
your daughter, who has been as true a 
wife. 



84 THE FUGITIVE 

Rama 

Are you indeed a true wife? 

Ama 

Yes. 

Rama 

Do you know how to die without 
flinching? 

Ama 

I do. 

Rama 

Then let the funeral fire be lighted 
for you! See, there lies the body of 
your husband. 

Ama 
Jivaji? 

Rama 

Yes, Jivaji. He was your husband 
by plighted troth. The baffled fire of 



THE FUGITIVE 85 

the nuptial God has raged into the 
hungry fire of death, and the inter- 
rupted wedding shall be completed 
now. 

ViNAYAKA 

Do not listen, my child. Go back 
to your son, to your own nest darkened 
with sorrow. My duty has been per- 
formed to its extreme cruel end, and 
nothing now remains for you to do. — 
Wife, your grief is fruitless. Were 
the branch dead which was violently 
snapped from our tree, I should give it 
to the fire. But it has sent living roots 
into a new soil and is bearing flowers 
and fruits. Allow her, without regret, 
to obey the laws of those among whom 
she has loved. Come, wife, it is time 
we cut all worldly ties and spent our 
remainder lives in the seclusion of some 
peaceful pilgrim shrine. 



86 ' THE FUGITIVE 

Rama 

I am ready : but first must tread into 
dust every sprout of sin and shame that 
has sprung from the soil of our life. 
A daughter's infamy stains her 
mother's honour. That black shame 
shall feed glowing fire to-night, and 
raise a true wife's memorial over the 
ashes of my daughter. 

Ama 

Mother, if by force you unite me in 
death with one who was not my hus- 
band, then will you bring a curse upon 
yourself for desecrating the shrine of 
the Eternal Lord of Death. 

Rama 

Soldiers, light the fire ; surround the 
woman! 

Ama 

Father! 



THE FUGITIVE 87 

ViNAYAKA 

Do not fear. Alas, my child, that 
you should ever have to call your 
father to save you from your mother's 
hands ! 

Ama 
Father! 

ViNAYAKA 

Come to me, my darling child ! Mere 
vanity are these man-made laws, 
splashing like spray against the rock 
of heaven's ordinance. Bring your 
son to me, and we will live together, my 
daughter. A father's love, like God's 
rain, does not judge but is poured 
forth from an abounding source. 

Rama 

Where would you go? Turn back! 
— Soldiers, stand firm in your loyalty 



88 THE FUGITIVE 

to your master Jivaji! do your last 
sacred duty by him! 

Ama 
Father! 

ViNAYAKA 

Free her, soldiers! She is my 
daughter. 

SOLDIEES 

She is the widow of our master, 

ViNAYAKA 

Her husband, though a Mussulman, 
was staunch in his own faith. 

Rama 

Soldiers, keep this old man under 
control ! 

Ama 

I defy you, mother I — You, soldiers, I 
defy! — for through death and love I 
win to freedom. 



30 

A painter was selling pictures at the 
fair; followed by servants, there passed 
the son of a minister who in youth had 
cheated this painter's father so that he 
had died of a broken heart. 

The boy lingered before the pictures 
and chose one for himself. The 
painter flung a cloth over it and said he 
would not sell it. 

After this the boy pined heart-sick 
till his father came and offered a large 
price. But the painter kept the pic- 
ture unsold on his shop-wall and 
grimly sat before it, saying to himself, 
"This is my revenge." 

The sole form this painter's worship 

89 



90 THE FUGITIVE 

took was to trace an image of his god 
every morning. 

And now he felt these pictures grow 
daily more different from those he used 
to paint. 

This troubled him, and he sought in 
vain for an explanation till one day he 
started up from work in horror, the 
eyes of the god he had just drawn were 
those of the minister, and so were the 
lips. 

He tore up the picture, ciying, "My 
revenge has returned on my head!" 



31 



The General came before the silent 
and angry King and saluting him said : 
"The village is punished, the men are 
stricken to dust, and the women cower 
in their unlit homes afraid to weep 
aloud." 

The High Priest stood up and blessed 



THE FUGITIVE 91 

the King and cried: "God's mercy is 
ever upon you." 

The Clown, when he heard this, 
burst out laughing and startled the 
court. The King's frown darkened. 

**The honour of the throne," said the 
minister, "is upheld by the King's 
prowess and the blessing of Almighty 
God." 

Louder laughed the Clown, and the 
King growled, — "Unseemly mirth!" 

"God has showered many blessings 
upon your head," said the Clown; "the 
one he bestowed on me was the gift of 
laughter." 

"This gift will cost you your life," 
said the King, gripping his sword with 
his right hand. 

Yet the Clown stood up and laughed 
till he laughed no more. 

A shadow of dread fell upon the 
Court, for they heard that laughter 
echoing in the depth of God's silence. 



32 
THE MOTHER'S PRAYER 



93 



THE MOTHER'S PRAYER 

Prince Duryodhana^ the son of the 
blind Kmirava King Dhntarashtra, 
and of Queen Gandhan, has played 
with his cousins the Pandava Kings for 
their kingdom, and won it by fraud, 

Dhritarashtra 
You have compassed your end. 

DUEYODHANA 

Success is mine! 

Dhritarashtra 
Are you happy? 

DURYODHANA 

I am victorious. 

95 



96 THE FUGITIVE 

Dhritaeashtra 
I ask you again, what happiness 
have you in winning the undivided 
kingdom? 

DURYODHANA 

Sire, a Kshatriya thirsts not after 
happiness but victory, that fiery wine 
pressed from seething jealousy. 
Wretchedly happy we were, like those 
inglorious stains that lie idly on the 
breast of the moon, when we lived in 
peace under the friendly dominance of 
our cousins. Then these Pandavas 
milked the world of its wealth, and al- 
lowed us a share, in brotherly tolerance. 
Now that they own defeat and expect 
banishment, I am no longer happy but 
exultant. 

Dhritarashtra 

Wretch, you forget that both Pan- 
davas and Kauravas have the same 
forefathers. 



THE FUGITIVE 97 

DURYODHANA 

It was difficult to forget that, and 
therefore our inequalities rankled in 
my heart. At midnight the moon is 
never jealous of the noonday sun. But 
the struggle to share one horizon be- 
tween both orbs cannot last forever. 
Thank heaven, that struggle is over, 
and we have at last won solitude in 
glory. 

Dhritarashtra 
The mean jealousy! 

DuRYODHANA 

Jealousy is never mean — it is in the 
essence of greatness. Grass can grow 
in crowded amity, not giant trees. 
Stars live in clusters, but the sun and 
moon are lonely in their splendour. 
The pale moon of the Pandavas sets 
behind the forest shadows, leaving the 



98 THE FUGITIVE 

new-risen sun of the Kauravas to re- 
joice. 

Dhritarashtra 
But right has been defeated. 

DURYODHANA 

Right for rulers is not what is right 
in the eyes of the people. The people 
thrive by comradeship: but for a king, 
equals are enemies. They are ob- 
stacles ahead, they are terrors from be- 
hind. There is no place for brothers 
or friends in a king's polity; its one 
solid foundation is conquest. 

Dhritarashtra 

I refuse to call a conquest what was 
won by fraud in gambling. 

DURYODHANA 

A man is not shamed by refusing to 
challenge a tiger on equal terms with 



THE FUGITIVE 99 

teeth and nails. Our weapons are 
those proper for success, not for sui- 
cide. Father, I am proud of the result 
and disdain regret for the means. 

Dhritarashtea 
But justice 

DURYODHANA 

Fools alone dream of justice — suc- 
cess is not yet theirs: but those born to 
rule rely on power, merciless and un- 
hampered with scruples. 

Dhritarashtra 
Your success will bring down on you 
a loud and angry flood of detraction. 

DURYODHANA 

The people will take amazingly little 
time to learn that Duryodhana is king 
and has power to crush calumny under 
foot. 



100 THE FUGITIVE 

D HRITARASHTRA 

Calumny dies of weariness dancing 
on tongue-tips. Do not drive it into 
the heart to gather strength. 

DURYODHANA 

Unuttered defamation does not 
touch a king's dignity. I care not if 
love is refused us, but insolence shall 
not be borne. Love depends upon the 
will of the giver, and the poorest of the 
poor can indulge in such generosity. 
Let them squander it on their pet cats, 
tame dogs, and our good cousins the 
Pandavas. I shall never envy them. 
Fear is the tribute I claim for my royal 
throne. Father, only too leniently 
you lent your ear to those who slan- 
dered your sons : but if you intend still 
to allow those pious friends of yours to 
revel in shrill denunciation at the ex- 
pense of your children, let us exchange 
our kingdom for the exile of our 



THE FUGITIVE 101 

cousins, and go to the wilderness, where 
happily friends are never cheap ! 

Dhritarashtra 

Could the pious warnings of my 
friends lessen my love for my sons, 
then we might be saved. But I have 
dipped my hands in the mire of your 
infamy and lost my sense of goodness. 
For your sakes I have heedlessly set 
fire to the ancient forest of our royal 
lineage — so dire is my love. Clasped 
breast to breast, we, like a double me- 
teor, are blindly plunging into ruin. 
Therefore doubt not my love ; relax not 
your embrace till the brink of anni- 
hilation be reached. Beat your drums 
of victory, lift your banner of triumph. 
In this mad riot of exultant evil, 
brothers and friends will disperse till 
nothing remain save the doomed 
father, the doomed son and God's 
curse. 



102 THE FUGITIVE 

Enter an Attendant 

Sire, Queen Gandhari asks for 
audience. 

D HRIT ARASHTRA 

I await her. 

DURYODHANA 

Let me take my leave. [Ea:it. 

Dhritarashtra 

Fly! For you cannot bear the fire 
of your mother's presence. 

Enter Queen Gandhari, the mother 

of DURYODHANA 

Gandhari 
At your feet I crave a boon. 

Dhritarashtra 
Speak, your wish is fulfilled. 



THE FUGITIVE 103 

Gandhari 
The time has come to renounce him. 

Dhritarashtba 
Whom, my queen? 

Gandhari 
Duryodhana! 

Dhritarashtra 
Our own son, Duryodhana? 

Gandhari 
Yes! 

Dhritarashtra 

This is a terrible boon for you, his 
mother, to crave! 

Gandhari 

The fathers of the Kauravas, who 
are in Paradise, join me in beseeching 
you. 



104 . THE FUGITIVE 

Dhritarashtra 

The divine Judge will punish him 
who has broken His laws. But I am 
his father. 

Gandhari 

Am I not his mother? Have I not 
carried him under my throbbing heart? 
Yes, I ask you to renounce Duryod- 
hana the unrighteous. 

Dhritarashtra 
What will remain to us after that? 

Gandhari 
God's blessing. 

Dhritarashtra 
And what will that bring us? 

Gandhari 

New afflictions. Pleasure in our 
son's presence, pride in a new kingdom. 



THE FUGITIVE 105 

and shame at knowing both purchased 
by wrong done or connived at, like 
thorns dragged two ways, would lacer- 
ate our bosoms. The Pandavas are 
too proud ever to accept back from us 
the lands which they have relinquished; 
therefore it is only meet that we draw 
some great sorrow down on our heads 
so as to deprive that unmerited reward 
of its sting. 

Dhritarashtra 

Queen, you inflict fresh pain on a 
heart already rent. 

Gandhaei 
Sire, the punishment imposed on our 
son will be more ours than his. A 
judge callous to the pain that he in- 
flects loses the right to judge. And if 
you spare your son to save yourself 
pain, then all the culprits ever pun- 
ished by your hands will cry before 



106 THE FUGITIVE 

God's throne for vengeance, — had they 
not also their fathers? 



Dhritarashtra 
No more of this, Queen, I pray you. 
Our son is abandoned of God: that is 
why I cannot give him up. To save 
him is no longer in my power, and 
therefore my consolation is to share his 
guilt and tread the path of destruction, 
his solitary companion. What is done 
is done; let follow what must follow! 

Gandhari 

Be calm, my heart, and patiently 
await God's judgment. Oblivious 
night wears on, the morning of reckon- 
ing nears, I hear the thundering roar 
of its chariot. Woman, bow your 
head down to the dust! and as a sacri- 
fice fling your heart under those 
wheels! Darkness will shroud the sky, 



THE FUGITIVE 107 

earth will tremble, wailing will rend the 
air and then comes the silent and cruel 
feridj, — that terrible peace, that great 
forgetting, and awful extinction of 
hatred — the supreme deliverance rising 
from the fire of death. 



33 

Fiercely they rend in pieces the 
carpet woven during ages of prayer for 
the welcome of the world's best hope. 

The great preparations of love lie a 
heap of shreds, and there is nothing on 
the ruined altar to remind the mad 
crowd that their god was to have come. 
In a fury of passion they seem to have 
burnt their future to cinders, and with 
it the season of their bloom. 

The air is harsh with the cry, "Vic- 
tory to the Brute!" The children 
look haggard and aged; they whisper 
to one another that time revolves but 
never advances, that we are goaded to 
run but have nothing to reach, that cre- 
ation is like a blind man's groping. 

I said to myself, "Cease thy singing. 
Song is for one who is to come, the 

109 



no THE FUGITIVE 

struggle without an end is for things 
that are." 

The road, that ever lies along like 
some one with ear to the ground listen- 
ing for footsteps, to-day gleans no hint 
of coming guest, nothing of the house 
at its far end. 

My lute said, "Trample me in the 
dust." 

I looked at the dust by the roadside. 
There was a tiny flower among thorns. 
And I cried, "The world's hope is not 
deadl" 

The sky stooped over the horizon to 
whisper to the earth, and a hush of ex- 
pectation filled the air. I saw the 
palm leaves clapping their hands to the 
beat of inaudible music, and the moon 
exchanged glances with the glistening 
silence of the lake. 

The road said to me, "Fear noth- 
ing!" and my lute said, "Lend me thy 
songs 1" 



34 

TRANSLATIONS 



ui 



BAUL SONGS ' 



This longing to meet in the play of 
love, my Lover, is not only mine but 
yours. 

Your lips can smile, your flute make 
music, only through delight in my love ; 
therefore you arc importunate even as I. 



I sit here on the road ; do not ask me 
to walk further. 

If your love can be complete without 
mine let me turn back from seeking 
you. 

1 The Bauls are a sect of religious mendicants in 
Bengal, unlettered and unconventional, whose songs 
are loved and sung by the people. The literal mean- 
ing of the word " Baul " is " the Mad." 

113 



114 THE FUGITIVE 

I refuse to beg a sight of you if you 
do not feel my need. 

I am blind with market dust and 
mid-day glare, and so wait, in hopes 
that your heart, my heart's lover, will 
send you to find me. 



I am poured forth in living notes of 
joy and sorrow by your breath. 

Mornings and evenings in summer 
and in rains, I am fashioned to music. 

Should I be wholly spent in some 
flight of song, I shall not grieve, the 
tune is so dear to me . 



My heart is a flute he has played on. 
If ever it fall into other hands let him 
fling it away. 

My lover's flute is dear to him, there- 
fore if to-day alien breath have en- 



THE FUGITIVE 115 

tered it and sounded strange notes, let 
him break it to pieces and strew the 
dust with them. 



In love the aim is neither pain nor 
pleasure but love only. 

While free love binds, division de- 
stroys it, for love is what unites. 

Love is lit from love as fire from fire, 
but whence came the first flame? 

In your being it leaps under the rod 
of pain. 

Then, when the hidden fire flames 
forth, the in and the out are one and 
all barriers fall in ashes. 

Let the pain glow fiercely, burst 
from the heart and beat back darkness, 
need you be afraid? 

The poet says, ''Who can buy love 
without paying its price? When you 
fail to give yourself you make the 
whole world miserly." 



116 THE FUGITIVE 



Eyes see only dust and earth, but feel 
with the heart, and know pure joy. 

The delights blossom on all sides in 
every form, but where is your heart's 
thread to make a wreath of them? 

My master's flute sounds through all 
things, drawing me out of my lodgings 
wherever they may be, and while I 
listen I know that every step I take is 
in my master's house. 

For he is the sea, he is the river that 
leads to the sea, and he is the landing- 
place. 



Strange ways has my guest. 

He comes at times when I am un- 
prepared, yet how can I refuse him? 

I watch all night with lighted lamp; 
he stays away; when the light goes out 



THE FUGITIVE 117 

and the room is bare he comes claiming 
his seat, and can I keep him waiting? 

I laugh and make merry with friends, 
then suddenly I start up, for lo! he 
passes me by in sorrow, and I know my 
mirth was vain. 

I have often seen a smile in his eyes 
when my heart ached, then I knew my 
sorrow was not real. 

Yet I never complain when I do not 
understand him. 



8 



I am the boat, you are the sea, and 
also the boatman. 

Though you never make the shore, 
though you let me sink, why should I 
be foolish and afraid? 

Is reaching the shore a greater prize 
than losing myself with you ? 

If you are only the haven, as they 
say, then what is the sea? 



118 THE FUGITIVE 

Let it surge and toss me on its waves, 
I shall be content. 

I live in you whatever and however 
you appear. Save me or kill me as 
you wish, only never leave me in other 
hands. 



Make way, O bud, make way, burst 
open thy heart and make way. 

The opening spirit has overtaken 
thee, canst thou remain a bud any 
longer? 



Ill 



119 



Come, Spring, reckless lover of the 
earth, make the forest's heart pant for 
utterance ! 

Come in gusts of disquiet where 
flowers break open and jostle the new 
leaves I 

Burst, like a rebellion of light, 
through the night's vigil, through the 
lake's dark dumbness, through the 
dungeon under the dust, proclaiming 
freedom to the shackled seeds ! 

Like the laughter of lightning, like 
the shout of a storm, break into the 
midst of the noisy town; free stifled 
word and unconscious effort, reinforce 
our flagging fight, and conquer death! 

121 



122 THE FUGITIVE 



I have looked on this picture in many 
a month of March when the mustard 
is in bloom — this lazy line of the water 
and the grey of the sand beyond, the 
rough path along the river-bank carry- 
ing the comradeship of the field into 
the heart of the village. 

I have tried to capture in rhyme the 
idle whistle of the wind, the beat of the 
oar-strokes from a passing boat. 

I h^ve wondered in my mind how 
simply it stands before me, this great 
world : with what fond and familiar ease 
it fills my heart, this encounter with the 
Eternal Stranger. 



The ferry-boat plies between the two 
villages facing each other across the 
narrow stream. 

The water is neither wide nor deep — 



THE FUGITIVE 123 

a mere break in the path that enhances 
the small adventures of daily life, like a 
break in the words of a song across 
which the tune gleefully streams. 

While the towers of wealth rise high 
and crash to ruin, these villages talk to 
each other across the garrulous stream, 
and the ferry-boat plies between them, 
age after age, from seed-time to harvest. 



In the evening after they have 
brought their cattle home, they sit on 
the grass before their huts to know that 
you are among them unseen, to repeat 
in their songs the name which they have 
fondly given you. 

While kings' crowns shine and dis- 
appear like falling stars, around village 
huts your name rises through the still 
night from the simple hearts of your 
lovers whose names are unrecorded. 



124 THE FUGITIVE 

5 

In Baby's world, the trees shake their 
leaves at him, murmuring verses in an 
ancient tongue that dates from before 
the age of meaning, and the moon 
feigns to be of his own age — the solitary 
baby of night. 

In the world of the old, flowers duti- 
fully blush at the make-believe of faery 
legends, and broken dolls confess that 
they are made of clay. 

6 

My world, when I was a child, you 
were a little girl-neighbour, a loving 
timid stranger. 

Then you grew bold and talked to 
me across the fence, offering me toys 
and flowers and shells. 

Next you coaxed me away from my 
work, you tempted me into the land of 
the dusk or the weedy corner of some 
garden in mid-day loneliness. 



THE FUGITIVE 125 

At length you told me stories about 
bygone times, with which the present 
ever longs to meet so as to be rescued 
from its prison in the moment. 



How often, great Earth, have I felt 
my being yearn to flow over you, shar- 
ing in the happiness of each green blade 
that raises its signal banner in answer 
to the beckoning blue of the sky! 

I feel as if I had belonged to you 
ages before I was born. That is why, 
in the days when the autumn light 
shimmers on the mellowing ears of rice, 
I seem to remember a past when my 
mind was everywhere, and even to hear 
voices as of playfellows echoing from 
the remote and deeply veiled past. 

When, in the evening, the cattle re- 
turn to their folds, raising dust from 



126 THE FUGITIVE 

the meadow paths, as the moon rises 
higher than the smoke ascending from 
the village huts, I feel sad as for some 
great separation that happened in the 
first morning of existence. 



8 



My mind still buzzed with the cares 
of a busy day; I sat on without noting 
how twilight was deepening into dark. 
Suddenly light stirred across the gloom 
and touched me as with a finger. 

I lifted my head and met the gaze of 
the full moon widened in wonder like 
a child's. It held my eyes for long, 
and I felt as though a love-letter had 
been secretly dropped in at my window. 
And ever since my heart is breaking to 
write for answer something fragrant as 
Night's unseen flowers — great as her 
declaration spelt out in nameless stars. 



THE FUGITIVE 127 



The clouds thicken till the morning 
light seems like a bedraggled fringe to 
the rainy night. 

A little girl stands at her window, 
still as a rainbow at the gate of a 
broken-down storm. 

She is my neighbour, and has come 
upon the earth like some god's rebel- 
lious laughter. Her mother in anger 
calls her incorrigible; her father smiles 
and calls her mad. 

She is like a runaway waterfall leap- 
ing over boulders, like the topmost bam- 
boo twig rustling in the restless wind. 

She stands at her window looking out 
into the sky. 

Her sister comes to say, "Mother 
calls you." She shakes her head. 

Her little brother with his toy boat 
comes and tries to pull her off to play; 



128 THE FUGITIVE 

she snatches her hand from his. The 
boy persists and she gives him a slap on 
the back. 

The first great voice was the voice of 
wind and water in the beginning of 
earth's creation. 

That ancient cry of nature — ^her 
dumb call to unborn hfe — has reached 
this child's heart and leads it out alone 
beyond the fence of our times : so there 
she stands, possessed by eternity! 

10 

The kingfisher sits still on the prow of 
an empty boat, while in the shallow 
margin of the stream a buffalo lies tran- 
quilly blissful, its eyes half closed to 
savour the luxury of cool mud. 

Undismayed by the barking of the 
village cur, the cow browses on the 
bank, followed by a hopping group of 
saliks hunting moths. 



THE FUGITIVE 129 

I sit in the tamarind grove, where the 
cries of dumb life congregate — ^the cat- 
tle's lowing, the sparrows' chatter, the 
shrill scream of a kite overhead, the 
crickets' chirp, and the splash of a fish 
in the water. 

I peep into the primeval nursery of 
life, where the mother Earth thrills at 
the first living clutch near her breast. 



11 

At the sleepy village the noon was 
still like a sunny midnight when my 
holidays came to their end. 

My little girl of four had followed 
me all the morning from room to room, 
watching my preparations in grave 
silence, till, wearied, she sat by the door- 
post strangely quiet, murmuring to her- 
self, "Father must not go!" 

This was the meal hour, when sleep 
daily overcame her, but her mother had 



130 THE FUGITIVE 

forgotten her and the child was too un- 
happy to complain. 

At last, when I stretched out my 
arms to her to say farewell, she never 
moved, but sadly looking at me said, 
"Father, you must not go!" 

And it amused me to tears to think 
how this little child dared to fight the 
giant world of necessity with no other 
resource than those few words, "Father, 
you must not go!" 



12 

Take your holiday, my boy ; there are 
the blue sky and the bare field, the barn 
and the ruined temple under the ancient 
tamarind. 

My holiday must be taken through 
yours, finding light in the dance of your 
eyes, music in your noisy shouts. 

To you autumn brings the true holi- 
day freedom: to me it brings the im- 



THE FUGITIVE 131 

possibility of work; for lo! you burst 
into my room. 

Yes, my holiday is an endless free- 
dom for love to disturb me. 



13 

In the evening my little daughter 
heard a call from her companions below 
the window. 

She timidly went down the dark 
stairs holding a lamp in her hand, 
shielding it behind her veil. 

I was sitting on my terrace in the 
star-lit night of March, when at a sud- 
den cry I ran to see. 

Her lamp had gone out in the dark 
spiral staircase. I asked, "Child, why 
did you cry?" 

From below she answered in distress, 
"Father, I have lost myself!" 

When I came back to the terrace 



132 THE FUGITIVE 

under the star-lit night of March, I 
looked at the sky, and it seemed that a 
child was walking there treasuring 
many lamps behind her veils. 

If their light went out, she would sud- 
denly stop and a cry would sound from 
sky to sky, "Father, I have lost my- 
self!" 

14 

The evening stood bewildered among 
street lamps, its gold tarnished by the 
city dust. 

A woman, gaudily decked and 
painted, leant over the rail of her bal- 
cony, a living fire waiting for its moths. 

Suddenly an eddy was formed in the 
road round a street-boy crushed under 
the wheels of a carriage, and the woman 
on the balcony fell to the floor scream- 
ing in agony, stricken with the p*rief of 
the great white-robed Mother who sits 
in the world's inner shrine. 



THE FUGITIVE 133 

15 

I remember the scene on the barren 
heath — a girl sat alone on the grass be- 
fore the gipsy camp, braiding her hair 
in the afternoon shade. 

Her little dog jumped and barked at 
her busy hands, as though her employ- 
ment had no importance. 

In vain did she rebuke it, calling it 
**a pest," saying she was tired of its 
perpetual silliness. 

She struck it on the nose with her 
reproving forefinger, which only 
seemed to dehght it the more. 

She looked menacingly grave for a 
few moments, to warn it of impending 
doom; and then, letting her hair fall, 
quickly snatched it up in her arms, 
laughed, and pressed it to her heart. 

16 

He is tall and lean, withered to the 
bone with long repeated fever, like a 



134 THE FUGITIVE 

dead tree unable to draw a single drop 
of sap from anywhere. 

In despairing patience, his mother 
carries him like a child into the sun, 
where he sits by the roadside in the 
shortening shadows of each forenoon. 

The world passes by — a woman to 
fetch water, a herd-boy with cattle to 
pasture, a laden cart to the distant mar- 
ket — and the mother hopes that some 
least stir of life may touch the awful 
torpor of her dying son. 

17 

If the ragged villager, trudging 
home from the market, could suddenly 
be lifted to the crest of a distant age, 
men would stop in their work and shout 
and run to him in delight. 

For they would no longer whittle 
down the man into the peasant, but find 
him full of the mystery and spirit of 
his age. 



THE FUGITIVE 135 

Even his poverty and pain would 
grow great, released from the shallow 
insult of the present, and the paltry- 
things in his basket would acquire 
pathetic dignity. 



18 



With the morning he came out to 
walk a road shaded by a file of deodars, 
that coiled the hill round like importun- 
ate love. 

He held the first letter from his newly 
wedded wife in their village home, beg- 
ging him to come to her, and come 
soon. 

The touch of an absent hand haunted 
him as he walked, and the air seemed 
to take up the cry of the letter: "Love, 
my love, my sky is brimming with 
tears!" 

He asked himself in wonder, '*How 
do I deserve this?" 



136 THE FUGITIVE 

The sun suddenly appeared over the 
rim of the blue hills, and four girls from 
a foreign shore came with swift strides, 
talking loud and followed by a barking 
dog. 

The two elder turned away to conceal 
their amusement at something strange 
in his insignificance, and the younger 
ones pushed each other, laughed aloud, 
and ran off in exuberant mirth. 

He stopped and his head sank. Then 
he suddenly felt his letter, opened and 
read it again. 



19 



The day came for the image from the 
temple to be drawn round the holy town 
in its chariot. 

The Queen said to the King, "Let 
us go and attend the festival." 

Only one man out of the whole house- 
hold did not join in the pilgrimage. His 



THE FUGITIVE 137 

work was to collect stalks of spear-grass 
to make brooms for the King's house. 

The chief of the servants said in pity- 
to him, "You may come with us." 

He bowed his head, saying, "It can- 
not be." 



The man dwelt by the road along 
which the King's followers had to pass. 
And when the Minister's elephant 
reached this spot, he called to him and 
said, "Come with us and see the God 
ride in his chariot !" 

"I dare not seek God after the King's 
fashion," said the man. 

"How should you ever have such luck 
again as to see the God in his chariot?" 
asked the Minister. 

"When God himself comes to my 
door," answered the man. 

The Minister laughed loud and said, 
"Fool! 'When God comes to your 



138 THE FUGITIVE 

door!' yet a King must travel to see 
him!" 

"Who except God visits the poor?" 
said the man. 



20 



Days were drawing out as the winter 
ended, and, in the sun, my dog played 
in his wild way with the pet deer. 

The crowd going to the market 
gathered by the fence, and laughed to 
see the love of these playmates struggle 
with languages so dissimilar. 

The spring was in the air, and the 
young leaves fluttered like flames. A 
gleam danced in the deer's dark eyes 
when she started, bent her neck at the 
movement of her own shadow, or raised 
her ears to listen to some whisper in 
the wind. 



THE FUGITIVE 139 

The message comes floating with the 
errant breeze, with the rustle and 
glimmer abroad in the April sky. It 
sings of the first ache of youth in the 
world, when the first flower broke from 
the bud, and love went forth seeking 
that which it knew not, leaving all it had 
known. 



And one afternoon, when among the 
amlak trees the shadow grew grave and 
sweet with the furtive caress of light, 
the deer set off to run like a meteor in 
love with death. 

It grew dark, and lamps were lighted 
in the house; the stars came out and 
night was upon the fields, but the deer 
never came back. 

My dog ran up to me whining, ques- 
tioning me with his piteous eyes which 
seemed to say, "I do not understand!" 

But who does ever understand? 



140 THE FUGITIVE 

21 

Our Lane is tortuous, as if, ages ago, 
she started in quest of her goal, vacil- 
lated right and left, and remained be- 
wildered for ever. 

Above in the air, between her build- 
ings, hangs like a ribbon a strip torn 
out of space: she calls it her sister of 
the blue town. 

She sees the sun only for a few mo- 
ments at mid-day, and asks herself in 
wise doubt, "Is it real?" 

In June rain sometimes shades her 
band of daylight as with pencil hatch- 
ings. The path grows slippery with 
mud, and umbrellas collide. Sudden 
jets of water from spouts overhead 
splash on her startled pavement. In 
her dismay, she takes it for the jest of 
an unmannerly scheme of creation. 

The spring breeze, gone astray in her 
coil of contortions, stumbles like a 



THE FUGITIVE 141 

drunken vagabond against angle and 
corner, filling the dusty air with scraps 
of paper and rag. "What fury of fool- 
ishness! Are the Gods gone mad?" she 
exclaims in indignation. 

But the daily refuse from the houses 
on both sides — scales of fish mixed with 
ashes, vegetable peelings, rotten fruit, 
and dead rats — ^never rouse her to ques- 
tion, "Why should these things be?" 

She accepts every stone of her paving. 
But from between their chinks some- 
times a blade of grass peeps up. That 
baffles her. How can solid facts permit 
such intrusion? 

On a morning when at the touch of 
autumn light her houses wake up into 
beauty from their foul dreams, she 
whispers to herself, "There is a limit- 
less wonder somewhere beyond these 
buildings." 

But the hours pass on ; the households 
are astir ; the maid strolls back from the 



142 THE FUGITIVE 

market, swinging her right arm and 
with the left clasping the basket of pro- 
visions to her side; the air grows thick 
with the smell and smoke of kitchens. 
It again becomes clear to our Lane that 
the real and normal consist solely of 
herself, her houses, and their muck- 
heaps. 

22 

The house, lingering on after its 
wealth has vanished, stands by the way- 
side like a madman with a patched rag 
over his back. 

Day after day scars it with spiteful 
scratches, and rainy months leave their 
fantastic signatures on its bared bricks. 

In a deserted upper room one of a 
pair of doors has fallen from rusty 
hinges; and the other, widowed, bangs 
day and night to the fitful gusts. 

One night the sound of women wail- 
ing came from that house. They 



THE FUGITIVE 143 

mourned the death of the last son of 
the family, a boy of eighteen, who 
earned his living by playing the part of 
the heroine in a travelling theatre. 

A few days more and the house 
became silent, and all the doors were 
locked. 

Only on the north side in the upper 
room that desolate door would neither 
drop off to its rest nor be shut, but 
swung to and fro in the wind like a 
self -torturing soul. 

After a time children's voices echo 
once more through that house. Over the 
balcony-rail women's clothes are hung 
in the sun, a bird whistles from a 
covered cage, and a boy plays with his 
kite on the terrace. 

A tenant has come to occupy a few 
rooms. He earns little and has many 
children. The tired mother beats them 
and they roll on the floor and shriek. 



144 THE FUGITIVE 

A maid-servant of forty drudges 
through the day, quarrels with her 
mistress, threatens to, but never leaves. 

Every day some small repairs are 
done. Paper is pasted in place of miss- 
ing panes ; gaps in the railings are made 
good with split bamboo; an empty box 
keeps the boltless gate shut; old stains 
vaguely show through new whitewash 
on the walls. 

The magnificence of wealth had 
found a fitting memorial in gaunt deso- 
lation; but, lacking suflScient means, 
they try to hide this with dubious 
devices, and its dignity is outraged. 

They have overlooked the deserted 
room on the north side. And its 
forlorn door still bangs in the wind, like 
Despair beating her breast. 

23 

In the depths of the forest the 
ascetic practised penance with fast- 



THE FUGITIVE 145 

closed eyes; he intended to deserve 
Paradise. 

But the girl who gathered twigs 
brought him fruits in her skirt, and 
water from the stream in cups made 
of leaves. 

The days went on, and his penance 
grew harsher till the fruits remained un- 
tasted, the water untouched: and the 
girl who gathered twigs was sad. 

The Lord of Paradise heard that a 
man had dared to aspire to be as the 
Gods. Time after time he had fought 
the Titans, who were his peers, and kept 
them out of his kingdom; yet he feared 
a man whose power was that of suffer- 
ing. 

But he knew the ways of mortals, and 
he planned a temptation to decoy this 
creature of dust away from his adven- 
ture. 

A breath from Paradise kissed the 



146 THE FUGITIVE 

limbs of the girl who gathered twigs, 
and her youth ached with a sudden 
rapture of beauty, and her thoughts 
hummed like the bees of a rifled hive. 

The time came when the ascetic 
should leave the forest for a mountain 
cave, to complete the rigour of his 
penance. 

When he opened his eyes in order to 
start on this journey, the girl appeared 
to him like a verse familiar, yet for- 
gotten, and which an added melody 
made strange. The ascetic rose from 
his seat and told her that it was time he 
left the forest. 

"But why rob me of my chance to 
serve you?" she asked with tears in her 
eyes. 

He sat down again, thought for long, 
and remained on where he was. 

That night remorse kept the girl 
awake. She began to dread her power 



THE FUGITIVE 147 

and hate her triumph, yet her mind 
tossed on the waves of turbulent 
dehght. 

In the morning she came and saluted 
the ascetic and asked his blessing, say- 
ing she must leave him. 

He gazed on her face in silence, then 
said, "Go, and may your wish be ful- 
filled." 

For years he sat alone till his penance 
was complete. 

The Lord of the Immortals came 
down to tell him that he had won Para- 
dise. 

"I no longer need it," said he. 

The God asked him what greater 
reward he desired. 

*'I want the girl who gathers twigs." 



24 



They said that Kabir, the weaver, 
was favoured of God, and the crowd 



148 THE FUGITIVE 

flocked round him for medicine and 
miracles. But he was troubled; his low 
birth had hitherto endowed him with a 
most precious obscurity to sweeten with 
songs and with the presence of his God. 
He prayed that it might be restored. 

Envious of the repute of this outcast, 
the priests leagued themselves with a 
harlot to disgrace him. Kabir came to 
the market to sell cloths from his loom ; 
when the woman grasped his hand, 
blaming him for being faithless, and fol- 
lowed him to his house, saying she would 
not be forsaken, Kabir said to himself, 
"God answers prayers in his own way." 

Soon the woman felt a shiver of fear 
and fell on her knees and cried, "Save 
me from my sin!" To which he said, 
"Open your life to God's light!" 

Kabir worked at his loom and sang, 
and his songs washed the stains from 
that woman's heart, and by way of re- 
turn found a home in her sweet voice. 



THE FUGITIVE 149 

One day the King, in a fit of caprice, 
sent a message to Kabir to come and 
sing before him. The weaver shook his 
head : but the messenger dared not leave 
his door till his master's errand was ful- 
filled. 

The King and his courtiers started at 
the sight of Kabir when he entered the 
hall. For he was not alone, the woman 
followed him. Some smiled, some 
frowned, and the King's face darkened 
at the beggar's pride and shamelessness. 

Kabir came back to his house dis- 
graced, the woman fell at his feet cry* 
ing, "Why accept such dishonour for 
my sake, master? Suffer me to go back 
to my infamy!" 

Kabir said, "I dare not turn my God 
away when he comes branded with 
insult." 



25 
SOMAKA AND EITVIK 



151 



SOMAKA AND RITVIK 

The shade of King Somaka, faring 
to Heaven in a chariot, passes other 
shades by the roadside, among them that 
of RiTviK, his former high-priest, 

A Voice 

Where would you go, King? 

Somaka 

Whose voice is that ? This turbid air 
is like suffocation to the eyes; I cannot 
see. 

The Voice 

Come down, King! Come down 
from that chariot bound for Heaven, 

153 



154 THE FUGITIVE 

SOMAKA 

Who are you? 

The Voice 

I am Ritvik, who in my earthly life 
was your preceptor and the chief priest 
of your house. 

SOMAKA 

Master, all the tears of the world 
seem to have become vapour to create 
this realm of vagueness. What make 
you here? 

Shades 

This hell lies hard by the road to 
Heaven, whence lights glimmer dimly, 
only to prove unapproachable. Day 
and night we listen to the heavenly 
chariot rumbling by with travellers for 
that region of bliss ; it drives sleep from 
our eyes and forces them to watch in 



THE FUGITIVE 155 

fruitless jealousy. Far below us earth's 
old forests rustle and her seas chant 
the primal hymn of creation: they 
sound like the wail of a memory that 
wanders void space in vain. 

RiTVIK 

Come down, King! 

Shades 
Stop a few moments among us. The 
earth's tears still cling about you, like 
dew on freshly culled flowers. You 
have brought with you the mingled 
odours of meadow and forest; remi- 
niscence of children, women, and com- 
rades; something too of the ineffable 
music of the seasons. 

SOMAKA 

Master, why are you doomed to live 
in this muffled stagnant world? 



156 THE FUGITIVE 

RlTVIK 

I offered up your son in the sacri- 
ficial fire: that sin has lodged my soul 
in this obscurity. 

Shades 

King, tell us the story, we implore 
you ; the recital of crime can still bring 
life's fire into our torpor. 

SOMAKA 

I was named Somaka, the King of 
Videha. After sacrificing at innumer- 
able shrines weary year on year, a son 
was born to my house in my old age, 
love for whom, like a sudden untimely 
flood, swept consideration for every- 
thing else from my life. He hid me com- 
pletely, as a lotus hides its stem. The 
neglected duties of a king piled up in 
shame before my throne. One day, in 
my audience hall, I heard my child cry 



THE FUGITIVE 157 

from his mother's room, and instantly 
rushed away, vacating my throne. 

RlTVIK 

Just then, it chanced, I entered the 
hall to give him my daily benediction; 
in blind haste he brushed me aside and 
enkindled my anger. When later he 
came back, shame-faced, I asked him: 
"King, what desperate alarm could 
draw you at the busiest hour of the day 
to the women's apartments, so as to 
desert your dignity and duty — ambas- 
sadors come from friendly courts, the 
aggrieved who ask for justice, your 
ministers waiting to discuss matters of 
grave import? and even lead you to 
slight a Brahmin's blessing?" 

SOMAKA 

At first my heart flamed with anger ; 
the next moment I trampled it down 
like the raised head of a snake and 



158 THE FUGITIVE 

meekly replied: "Having only one 
child, I have lost my peace of mind. 
Forgive me this once, and I promise 
that in future the father's infatuation 
shall never usurp the King." 

RiTVIK 

But my heart was bitter with resent- 
ment, and I said, "If you must be de- 
livered from the curse of having only 
one child, I can show you the way. But 
so hard is it that I feel certain you will 
fail to follow it." This galled the 
King's pride and he stood up and ex- 
claimed, "I swear, by all that is sacred, 
as a Kshatriya and a King, I will not 
shrink, but perform whatever you may 
ask, however hard." "Then listen," 
said I. "Light a sacrificial fire, offer 
up your son: the smoke that rises will 
bring you progeny, as the clouds bring 
rain." The King bowed his head upon 
his breast and remained silent: the 



THE FUGITIVE 159 

courtiers shouted their horror, the Brah- 
mins clapped their hands over their ears, 
crying, "Sin it is both to utter and Hsten 
to such words." After some moments 
of bewildered dismay the King calmly 
said, "I will abide by my promise." The 
day came, the fire was lit, the town was 
emptied of its people, the child was 
called for; but the attendants refused 
to obey, the soldiers rebelliously went 
off duty, throwing down their arms. 
Then I, who in my wisdom had soared 
far above all weakness of heart and to 
whom emotions were illusory, went my- 
self to the apartment where, with their 
arms, women fenced the child like a 
flower surrounded by the menacing 
branches of a tree. He saw me and 
stretched out eager hands and struggled 
to come to me, for he longed to be free 
from the love that imprisoned him. 
Crying, "I am come to give you true 
deliverance," I snatched him by force 



160 THE FUGITIVE 

from his fainting mother and his nurses 
wailing in despair. With quivering 
tongues the fire licked the sky and the 
King stood beside it, still and silent, like 
a tree struck dead by lightning. Fasci- 
nated by the godlike splendour of the 
blaze, the child babbled in glee and 
danced in my arms, impatient to seek 
an unknown nurse in the free glory of 
those flames. 

SOMAKA 

Stop, no more, I pray I 

Shades 

Ritvik, your presence is a disgrace to 
hell itself! 

The Charioteer 
This is no place for you. King! nor 
have you deserved to be forced to listen 
to this recital of a deed which makes 
hell shudder in pity. 



THE FUGITIVE 161 

SOMAKA 

Drive off in your chariot ! — Brahmin, 
my place is by you in this hell. The 
Gods may forget my sin, but can I for- 
get the last look of agonised surprise on 
my child's face when, for one terrible 
moment, he realised that his own father 
had betrayed his trust? 

Enter D harm a, the Judge of Departed 
Spirits 

Dharma 
King, Heaven waits for you. 

SOMAKA 

No, not for me. I killed my own 
child. 

Dharma 

Your sin has been swept away in the 
fury of pain it caused you. 



162 THE FUGITIVE 

RiTVIK 

No, King, you must never go to 
Heaven alone, and thus create a second 
hell for me, to burn both with fire and 
with hatred of you! Stay here! 

SOMAKA 

I will stay. 

Shades 

And crown the despair and inglorious 
suffering of hell with the triumph of a 
soul! 



26 

The man had no useful work, only 
vagaries of various kinds. 

Therefore it surprised him to find 
himself in Paradise after a life spent 
perfecting trifles. 

Now the guide had taken him by mis- 
take to the wrong Paradise — one meant 
only for good, busy souls. 

In this Paradise, our man saunters 
along the road only to obstruct the rush 
of business. 

He stands aside from the path and is 
warned that he tramples on sown seed. 
Pushed, he starts up : hustled, he moves 
on. 

163 



164 THE FUGITIVE 

A very busy girl comes to fetch water 
from the well. Her feet run on the 
pavement like rapid fingers over harp- 
strings. Hastily she ties a negligent 
knot with her hair, and loose locks on 
her forehead pry into the dark of her 
eyes. 

The man says to her, "Would you 
lend me your pitcher?" 

"My pitcher?" she asks, "to draw 
water?" 

"No, to paint patterns on." 

"I have no time to waste," the girl 
retorts in contempt. 

Now a busy soul has no chance 
against one who is supremely idle. 

Every day she meets him at the well, 
and every day he repeats the same re- 
quest, till at last she yields. 

Our man paints the pitcher with curi- 
ous colours in a mysterious maze of 
lines. 



THE FUGITIVE 165 

The girl takes it up, turns it round 
and asks, "What does it mean?" 
"It has no meaning," he answers. 

The girl carries the pitcher home. 
She holds it up in different lights and 
tries to con its mystery. 

At night she leaves her bed, lights a 
lamp, and gazes at it from all points of 
view. 

This is the first time she has met with 
something without meaning. 

On the next day the man is again near 
the well. 

The girl asks, "What do you want?" 

"To do more work for you." 

"What work?" she enquires. 

"Allow me to weave coloured strands 
into a ribbon to bind your hair." 

"Is there any need?" she asks. 

"None whatever," he allows. 

The ribbon is made, and thence- 



166 THE FUGITIVE 

forward she spends a great deal of time 
over her hair. 

The even stretch of well-employed 
time in that Paradise begins to show 
irregular rents. 

The elders are troubled; they meet 
in council. 

The guide confesses his blunder, say- 
ing that he has brought the wrong man 
to the wrong place. 

The wrong man is called. His tur- 
ban, flaming with colour, shows plainly 
how great that blunder has been. 

The chief of the elders says, "You 
must go back to the earth." 

The man heaves a sigh of relief: "I 
am ready." 

The girl with the ribbon round her 
hair chimes in: "I also!" 

For the first time the chief of the 
elders is faced with a situation which 
has no sense in it. 



THE FUGITIVE 167 

27 

It is said that in the forest, near the 
meeting of river and lake, certain fairies 
live in disguise who are only recognised 
as fairies after they have flown away. 

A Prince went to this forest, and 
when he came where river met lake he 
saw a village girl sitting on the bank 
ruffling the water to make the lilies 
dance. 

He asked her in a whisper, "Tell me, 
what fairy art thou?" 

The girl laughed at the question and 
the hillsides echoed her mirth. 

The Prince thought she was the 
laughing fairy of the waterfall. 

News reached the King that the 
Prince had married a fairy: he sent 
horses and men and brought them to 
his house. 



168 THE FUGITIVE 

The Queen saw the bride and turned 
her face away in disgust, the Prince's 
sister flushed red with annoyance, and 
the maids asked if that was how fairies 
dressed. 

The Prince whispered, *'Hush! my 
fairy has come to our house in disguise." 

On the day of the yearly festival the 
Queen said to her son, "Ask your bride 
not to shame us before our kinsfolk who 
are coming to see the fairy." 

And the Prince said to his bride, 
"For my love's sake show thy true self 
to my people." 

Long she sat silent, then nodded 
her promise while tears ran down her 
cheeks. 

The full moon shone, the Prince, 
dressed in a wedding robe, entered his 
bride's room. 

No one was there, nothing but a 



THE FUGITIVE 169 

streak of moonlight from the window 
aslant the bed. 

The kinsfolk crowded in with the 
King and the Queen, the Prince's sister 
stood by the door. 

All asked, "Where is the fairy- 
bride?" 

The Prince answered, "She has 
vanished for ever to make herself known 
to you." 



28 
KARNA AND KUNTI 



171 



KAENA AND KUNTI 

The Pandava Queen Kunti before 
marriage had a son, Kama, who, in 
manhood, became the commander of the 
Kanrava host. To hide her shame she 
abandoned him at birth, and a chari- 
oteer, Adhiratha, brought him up as his 
son, 

Karna 

I am Karna, the son of the charioteer, 
Adhiratha, and I sit here by the bank 
of holy Ganges to worship the setting 
sun. Tell me who you are. 

Kunti 
I am the woman who first made you 

173 



174 THE FUGITIVE 

acquainted with that light you are 
worshipping. 



Karna 

I do not understand: but your eyes 
melt my heart as the kiss of the morn- 
ing sun melts the snow on a mountain- 
top, and your voice rouses a blind sad- 
ness within me of which the cause may 
well lie beyond the reach of my earliest 
memory. Tell me, strange woman, 
what mystery binds my birth to you? 

KUNTI 

Patience, my son. I will answer when 
the lids of darkness come down over the 
prying eyes of day. In the meanwhile, 
know that I am Kunti. 



Karna 
Kunti! The mother of Arjuna? 



THE FUGITIVE 175 

KUNTI 

Yes, indeed, the mother of Arjuna, 
your antagonist. But do not, therefore, 
hate me. I still remember the day of 
the trial of arms in Hastina when you, 
an unknown boy, boldly stepped into 
the arena, like the first ray of dawn 
among the stars of night. Ah ! who was 
that unhappy woman whose eyes kissed 
your bare, slim body through tears that 
blessed you, where she sat among the 
women of the royal household behind 
the arras? Why, the mother of Arjuna! 
Then the Brahmin, master of arms, 
stepped forth and said, "No youth of 
mean birth may challenge Arjuna to a 
trial of strength." You stood speech- 
less, like a thunder-cloud at sunset 
flashing with an agony of suppressed 
light. But who was the woman whose 
heart caught fire from your shame and 
anger, and flared up in silence? The 



176 THE FUGITIVE 

mother of Arjuna! Praised be Dur- 
yodhana, who perceived your worth, 
and then and there crowned you King 
of Anga, thus winning the Kauravas a 
champion. Overwhelmed at this good 
fortune, Adhiratha, the charioteer, 
broke through the crowd ; you instantly 
rushed to him and laid your crown at 
his feet amid the j eering laughter of the 
Pandavas and their friends. But there 
was one woman of the Pandava house 
whose heart glowed with joy at the 
heroic pride of such humility ; — even the 
mother of Arjuna! 

Kaena 

But what brings you here alone. 
Mother of kings? 

KUNTI 

I have a boon to crave. 

Karna 

Command me, and whatever man- 



THE FUGITIVE 177 

hood and my honour as a Kshatriya 
permit shall be offered at your feet. 



KUNTI 

I have come to take you. 

Karna 

Where? 

KuNTi 
To my breast thirsting for your love, 
my son. 

•Karna 

Fortunate mother of five brave kings, 
where can you find place for me, a 
small chieftain of lowly descent? 

KUNTI 

Your place is before all my other 
sons. 

Karna 
But what right have I to take it? 



178 THE FUGITIVE 

KUNTI 

Your own God-given right to your 
mother's love. 

Karna 

The gloom of evening spreads over 
the earth, silence rests on the water, and 
your voice leads me back to some primal 
world of infancy lost in twilit conscious- 
ness. However, whether this be dream, 
or fragment of forgotten reality, come 
near and place your right hand on my 
forehead. Rumour runs that I was de- 
serted by my mother. Many a night 
she has come to me in my slumber, but 
when I cried: "Open your veil, show 
me your face!" her figure always van- 
ished. Has this same dream come this 
evening while I wake? See, yonder the 
lamps are lighted in your son's tents 
across the river ; and on this side behold 
the tent-domes of my Kauravas, like 
the suspended waves of a spell-arrested 



THE FUGITIVE 179 

storm at sea. Before the din of to- 
morrow's battle, in the awful hush of 
this field where it must be fought, why 
should the voice of the mother of my 
opponent, Arjuna, bring me a message 
of forgotten motherhood? and why 
should my name take such music from 
her tongue as to draw my heart out to 
him and his brothers? 

KUNTI 

Then delay not, my son, come with 
me! 

Karna 

Yes, I will come and never ask ques- 
tion, never doubt. ]\Iy soul responds to 
your call; and the struggle for victory 
and fame and the rage of hatred have 
suddenly become untrue to me, as the 
delirious dream of a night in the serenity 
of the dawn. Tell me whither you mean 
to lead ? 



180 THE FUGITIVE 

KUNTI 

To the other bank of the river, where 
those lamps burn across the ghastly- 
pallor of the sands. 

Karna 

Am I there to find my lost mother 
for ever? 

KUNTI 

O my son! 

Kaena 

Then why did you banish me — a 
castaway uprooted from my ancestral 
soil, adrift in a homeless current of in- 
dignity? Why set a bottomless chasm 
between Arjuna and myself, turning 
the natural attachment of kinship to the 
dread attraction of hate? You remain 
speechless. Your shame permeates the 
vast darkness and sends invisible 
shivers through my limbs. Leave my 



THE FUGITIVE 181 

question unanswered! Never explain 
to me what made you rob your son of 
his mother's love! Only tell me why 
you have come to-day to call me back 
to the ruins of a heaven wrecked by your 
own hands? 

KUNTI 

I am dogged by a curse more deadly 
than your reproaches: for, though sur- 
rounded by five sons, my heart shrivels 
like that of a woman deprived of her 
children. Through the great rent that 
yawned for my deserted first-born, all 
my life's pleasures have run to waste. 
On that accursed day when I belied my 
motherhood you could not utter a word ; 
to-day your recreant mother implores 
you for generous words. Let your for- 
giveness burn her heart like fire and 
consume its sin. 

Karna 

Mother, accept my tears! 



182 THE FUGITIVE 

KUNTI 

I did not come with the hope of win- 
ning you back to my arms, but with that 
of restoring your rights to you. Come 
and receive, as a king's son, your due 
among your brothers. 

Karna 

I am more truly the son of a 
charioteer, and do not covet the glory 
of greater parentage. 

KUNTI 

Be that as it may, come and win back 
the kingdom, which is yours by right! 

Karna 

JNIust you, who once refused me a 
mother's love, tempt me with a king- 
dom? The quick bond of kindred which 
you severed at its root is dead, and can 
never grow again. Shame were mine 



THE FUGITIVE 183 

should I hasten to call the mother of 
kings mother, and abandon my mother 
in the charioteer's house! 

KUNTI 

You are great, my son! How God's 
punishment invisibly grows from a tiny 
seed to a giant life ! The helpless babe 
disowned by his mother comes back a 
man through the dark maze of events 
to smite his brothers! 

Kaena 

Mother, have no fear ! I know for cer- 
tain that victory awaits the Pandavas. 
Peaceful and still though this night be, 
my heart is full of the music of a hope- 
less venture and baffled end. Ask me 
not to leave those who are doomed to 
defeat. Let the Pandavas win the 
throne, since they must: I remain with 
the desperate and forlorn. On the 



184 THE FUGITIVE 

night of my birth you left me naked 
and unnamed to disgrace : leave me once 
again without pity to the calm expecta- 
tion of defeat and death ! 



^ 29 

When like a flaming scimitar the hill 
stream has been sheathed in gloom by 
the evening, suddenly a flock of birds 
passes overhead, their loud-laughing 
wings hurling their flight like an arrow 
among stars. 

It startles a passion for speed in the 
heart of all motionless things; the hills 
seem to feel in their bosom the anguish 
of storm-clouds, and trees long to break 
their rooted shackles. 

For me the flight of these birds has 
rent a veil of stillness, and reveals an 
immense flutter in this deep silence. 

I see these hills and forests fly across 
time to the imknown, and darkness 
thrill into flre as the stars wing by. 

185 



186 THE FUGITIVE 

I feel in my own being the rush of 
the sea-crossing bird, cleaving a way be- 
yond the limits of life and death, while 
the migrant world cries with a myriad 
voices, "Not here, but somewhere else, 
in the bosom of the Faraway." 



30 



The crowd listens in wonder to Kashi, 
the young singer, whose voice, like a 
sword in feats of skill, dances amidst 
hopeless tangles, cuts them to pieces, 
and exults. 

Among the hearers sits old Rajah 
Pratap in weary endurance. For his 
own life had been nourished and en- 
circled by Barajlal's songs, like a happy 
land which a river laces with beauty. 
His rainy evenings and the still hours 
of autumn days spoke to his heart 



THE FUGITIVE 187 

through Barajlal's voice, and his festive 
nights trimmed their lamps and tinkled 
their bells to those songs. 

When Kashi stopped for rest, Pratap 
smilingly winked at Barajlal and spoke 
to him in a whisper, "Master, now let 
us hear music and not this new-fangled 
singing, which mimics frisky kittens 
hunting paralysed mice." 

The old singer with his spotlessly 
white turban made a deep bow to the 
assembly and took his seat. His thin 
fingers struck the strings of his instru- 
ment, his eyes closed, and in timid 
hesitation his song began. The hall was 
large, his voice feeble, and Pratap 
shouted "Bravo!" with ostentation, but 
whispered in his ear, "Just a little 
louder, friend!" 

The crowd was restless; some 
yawned, some dozed, some complained 



188 THE FUGITIVE 

of the heat. The air of the hall hummed 
with many-toned inattention, and the 
song, like a frail boat, tossed upon it in 
vain till it sank under the hubbub. 



Suddenly the old man, stricken at 
heart, forgot a passage, and his voice 
groped in agony, like a blind man at a 
fair for his lost leader. He tried to 
fill the gap with any strain that came. 
But the gap still yawned: and the 
tortured notes refused to serve the need, 
suddenly changed their tune, and broke 
into a sob. The master laid his head on 
his instrument, and in place of his for- 
gotten music, there broke from him the 
first cry of life that a child brings into 
the world. 

Pratap touched him gently on his 
shoulder, and said, "Come away, our 
meeting is elsewhere. I know, my 
friend, that truth is widowed without 



THE FUGITIVE 189 

love, and beauty dwells not with the 
many, nor in the moment." 



31 

In the youth of the world, Himalaya, 
you sprang from the rent breast of the 
earth, and hurled your burning chal- 
lenges to the sun, hill after hill. Then 
came the mellow time when you said to 
yourself, "No more, no further!" and 
your fiery heart, that raged for the free- 
dom of clouds, found its limits, and 
stood still to salute the limitless. After 
this check on your passion, beauty was 
free to play upon your breast, and trust 
surrounded you with the joy of flowers 
and birds. 

You sit in your solitude like a great 
reader, on whose lap Hes open some 
ancient book with its countless pages 
of stone. What story is written there. 



190 THE FUGITIVE 

I wonder? — is it the eternal wedding 
of the divine ascetic, Shiva, with 
Bhavani, the divine love? — ^the drama 
of the Terrible wooing the power of the 
Frail? 

32 

I feel that my heart will leave its own 
colour in all your scenes, O Earth, when 
I bid you farewell. Some notes of mine 
will be added to your seasons' melody, 
and my thoughts will breathe unrecog- 
nised through the cycle of shadows and 
sunshine. 

In far-distant days summer will come 
to the lovers' garden, but they will not 
know that their flowers have borrowed 
an added beauty from my songs, nor 
that their love for this world has been 
deepened by mine. 

33 
My eyes feel the deep peace of this 



THE FUGITIVE 191 

sky, and there stirs through me what 
a tree feels when it holds out its leaves 
like cups to be filled with sunshine. 

A thought rises in my mind, like the 
warm breath from grass in the sun; it 
mingles with the gtirgle of lapping 
water and the sigh of weary wind in 
village lanes, — ^the thought that I have 
lived along with the whole life of this 
world and have given to it my own love 
and sorrows. 



34 



I ask no reward for the songs I sang 
you. I shall be content if they live 
through the night, until Dawn, like a 
shepherd-maiden, calls away the stars, 
in alarm at the sun. 

But there were moments when you 
sang your songs to me, and as my pride 
knows, my Poet, you will ever remem- 
ber that I listened and lost my heart. 



192 THE FUGITIVE 

35 

In the morning, when the dew glis- 
tened upon the grass, you came and 
gave a push to my swing ; but, sweeping 
from smiles to tears, I did not know 
you. 

Then came April's noon of gorgeous 
light, and I think you beckoned me to 
follow you. 

But when I sought your face, there 
passed between us the procession of 
flowers, and men and women flinging 
their songs to the south wind. 

Daily I passed you unheeded on the 
road. 

But on some days full of the faint 
smell of oleanders, when the wind was 
wilful among complaining palm leaves, 
I would stand before you wondering if 
you ever had been a stranger to me. 



THE FUGITIVE 193 

36 

The day grew dim. The early eve- 
ning star faltered near the edge of a 
grey lonely sky. 

I looked back and felt that the road 
lying behind me was infinitely removed ; 
traced through my life, it had only 
served for a single journey and was 
never to be re-travelled. 

The long story of my coming hither 
lies there dumb, in one meandering line 
of dust stretching from the morning 
hilltop to the brink of bottomless night. 

I sit alone, and wonder if this road 
is like an instrument waiting to give up 
the day's lost voices in music when 
touched by divine fingers at nightfall. 

37 

Give me the supreme courage of 
love, this is my prayer — ^the courage to 
speak, to do, to suffer at thy will, to 



194 THE FUGITIVE 

leave all things or be left alone. 
Strengthen me on errands of danger, 
honour me with pain, and help me climb 
to that difficult mood which sacrifices 
daily to thee. 

Give me the supreme confidence of 
love, this is my prayer — the confidence 
that belongs to life in death, to victory 
in defeat, to the power hidden in 
frailest beauty, to that dignity in pain 
which accepts hurt but disdains to 
return it. 



38 
TRANSLATIONS 



195 



FROM HINDI SONGS OF 
JNANADAS 



Where were your songs, my bird, 
when you spent your nights in the nest? 

Was not all your pleasure stored 
therein? 

What makes you lose your heart to 
the sky — the sky that is boundless? 

Answer 

While I rested within bounds I was 
content. But when I soared into vast- 
ness I found I could sing. 

197 



198 THE FUGITIVE 

2 

Messenger, morning brought you, 
habited in gold. 

After sunset your song wore a tune 
of ascetic grey, and then came night. 

Your message was written in bright 
letters across black. 

Why is such splendour about you to 
lure the heart of one who is nothing? 

Answer 

Great is the festival hall where you 
are to be the only guest. 

Therefore the letter to you is written 
from sky to sky, and I, the proud 
servant, bring the invitation with all 
ceremony. 

3 
I had travelled all day and was tired, 
then I bowed my head towards thy 
kingly court still far away. 



THE FUGITIVE 199 

The night deepened, a longing 
burned in my heart ; whatever the words 
I sang, pain cried through them, for 
even my songs thirsted. O my Lover, 
my Beloved, my best in all the world ! 



When time seemed lost in darkness 
thy hand dropped its sceptre to take up 
the lute and strike the uttermost chords ; 
and my heart sang out, O my Lover, my 
Beloved, my best in all the world 1 

Ah, who is this whose arms enfold 
me? 

Whatever I have to leave let me 
leave, and whatever I have to bear let 
me bear. Only let me walk with thee, 
O my Lover, my Beloved, my best in 
all the world ! 



Descend at whiles from thine audi- 



200 THE FUGITIVE 

ence hall, come down amid joys and sor- 
rows ; hide in all forms and delights, in 
love and in my heart; there sing thy 
songs, O my Lover, my Beloved, my 
best in all the world ! 



THE END 



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